w 


v 


££**& 


University  of  California. 


<  ilFT    OP 


181-L. 


HALF-CENTURY 


OF   THE 


UNITARIAN    CONTROVERSY, 


WITH    PARTICULAR   REFERENCE 


TO  ITS    ORIGIN,  ITS    COUESE,   AND    ITS   PROMINENT 
SUBJECTS  AMONG  THE   CONGREGATIONAL- 
ISTS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 


WITH     AN    APPENDIX. 


BY 


GEORGE    E.    ELLIS. 


((UITIVERSIT 


BOSTON: 

CROSBY,    NICHOLS,    AND    COMPANY 

1857. 


&x?e?/ 


Bj- 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1857,  by 

Crosby,  Nichols,  and  Cojupany, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 

METCALF  AND   COMPANY,   PRINTERS  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction v 


A  Half-Century  of  the  Unitarian  Controversy        .  1 
Unitarianism  and  Orthodoxy  on  the  Nature  and  the 

State   of  Man 51 

Unitarianism  and  Orthodoxy  on  God  and  Christ    .  105 

Unitarianism  and  Orthodoxy  on  the  Atonement        .  155 

Unitarianism  and  Orthodoxy  on  the  Scriptures     .  221 

Relations  of  Reason  and  Faith 287 

The  New  Theology   .        . 343 


APPENDIX. 

I.    Date  of  the  Unitarian  Controversy   in   Massa- 
chusetts     407 

II.    Disappointment  or  Success  of  Unitarianism     .        408 

III.  Unitarianism  and  Transcendentalism    .        .        .412 

IV.  The  Legal  Decisions  in  Cases  of  Church  Prop- 

erty         .        . 415 

V.    Unitarians  impeached  for  Concealment     .        .  432 
VI.    Genealogy    and   Influence    of   Unitarianism    in 

Massachusetts 438 


IV  CONTENTS. 

VII.    The  Orthodox  Doctrine  of  Human  Nature       .  447 
VIII.    TnE  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity    ....  463 
IX.    Unitarianism  on  the   Nature,   Rank,   and   Of- 
fices of  Christ 472 

X.    The  Doctrine  of  Atonement          ....  482 
XL    Exclusion  of  Unitarians  from  Christian  Fel- 
lowship      498 

XII.    Controverted  Views  of  Scripture   .        .        .  504 


INTRODUCTION 


The  seven  Essays  which  occupy  the  substantia]  part 
of  this  volume  have  already  appeared  in  print,  in  re- 
cently published  numbers  of  the  Christian  Examiner. 
They  are  now  issued  in  this  present  form  in  compliance 
with  the  wishes  of  many  readers.  An  opportunity  is 
thus  afforded  to  the  writer  of  them  of  laying  aside  the 
plural  pronoun  used  in  his  late  editorial  capacity,  and 
of  writing  an  Introduction  to  them  in  his  own  proper 
name. 

For  the  many  and  earnest  expressions  received  through 
public  and  private  channels,  conveying  to  me  grateful 
evidence  that  I  have  not  spent  labor  on  an  unprofitable 
service,  I  would  here  make  a  most  thankful  return.  To 
have  contributed  even  in  the  humblest  measure  to  a 
peaceful  discussion  of  subjects  too  often  associated  with 
malignant  feelings  and  offensive  language,  is  a  source 
of  pleasure  to  me.  If,  beyond  that,  I  have  in  the  slight- 
est degree  simplified  or  relieved  some  themes  which  all 
former  discussions  have  helped  to  confuse  or  perplex,  I 
shall  have  realized  the  highest  object  which  I  dared  to 
propose  to  myself  as  attainable. 

I  have  been  dealing  with  matters  of  controversy,  and 
yet  I  have  had  in  view  no  controversial  design.  If  no 
better  purpose  had  moved  me  than  that  of  adding  yet 
another  to  the  endless  and  exhaustless  reiterations  of 
dogmatical  disputation  about  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

I  am  certain  that  I  should  have  found  more  congenial 
employment  for  my  time  and  my  pen.  I  have  endeav- 
ored wholly  to  avoid  what  is  heating  and  bitter  in 
writing  upon  controverted  subjects.  Too  much,  that  has 
been  dictated  in  that  spirit  has  necessarily  passed  under 
my  notice,  to  give  me  any  other  feeling  than  that  of 
sheer  disgust  toward  it.  I  have  believed  that  it  is 
possible  for  intelligent  persons  to  treat  with  rigid  candor 
and  with  passionless  feelings  such  matters  of  variance 
between  them  as  those  who  claim  alike  to  be  Christians 
find  to  be  grounds  of  division  in  faith  and  sympathy. 
If,  notwithstanding  my  sincere  purpose  and  my  avowed 
resolution  on  this  point,  friendly  or  unfriendly  readers 
should  still  detect  in  these  pages  any  tokens  of  misrep- 
resentation, or  ill-feelings,  or  controversial  unfairness,  I 
make  here  a  humble  apology  for  the  offence,  and  beg 
that  my  error  may  be  accounted  in  part  to  the  conta- 
gious influence  of  much  unwholesome  matter  which  I 
have  been  compelled  to  peruse,  and  in  part  to  something 
still  left  incomplete  in  the  process  of  my  own  conver- 
sion. I  would  use  controversy  with  another  rather  as  a 
means  for  discovering  wherein  my  own  views  may  be 
wrong,  than  as  a  means  of  triumphing  over  his  errors. 
There  is  a  wholesome  discipline  of  mind  in  fair  con- 
troversy, where  both  parties  are  alike  interested  in  the 
subjects  under  discussion.  Nor  where  truth  is  the  only 
end  in  view,  and  where  the  search  for  it  is  but  the  first 
stage  of  full  loyalty  and  deference  to  it,  need  controversy 
have  any  harmful  effect  on  the  heart. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  the  best  way  to  redeem  what, 
in  the  retrospect,  might  appear  to  call  for  regret  in  the 
origin  or  conduct  of  the  controversy  among  the  descend- 
ants of  a  Congregational  lineage  in  New  England,  was 
to  seek  for  something  among  its  results  which  would 
either  justify  it  to  Christian  men,  or  be  available  as 
showing:  that  a  conciliation  of  old  strifes  was  attended 


INTRODUCTION.  Vll 

by  an  approximation  of  sentiments  between  the  two 
extreme  parties.  My  object,  therefore,  was  to  subordi- 
nate the  controversial  to  the  historical,  and  to  make  a 
sketch  of  the  past  strife  between  the  parties  a  point 
from  which  to  trace  any  subsequent  modifications  of 
opinion  on  either  side,  as  now  exhibited  in  the  views 
advanced  by  their  successors.  A  Christian  minister  who 
continues  his  professional  studies  in  the  quiet  hours 
rescued  from  routine  duties,  enjoys  all  the  means  for 
testing  the  Gospel  in  the  substance  of  its  speculative 
and  its  practical  elements.  A  critical  or  antiquarian 
student  of  the  Bible  and  of  ecclesiastical  history,  who  is 
not  brought  daily  into  a  religious  relation  with  others, 
becomes  either  a  dreamer  or  a  sceptic.  He  will  either 
work  out  some  fanciful  conceit  or  worthless  theory  of 
his  own,  and  so  add  another  to  the  already  annoying 
tasks  through  which  plain  minds  must  make  their  way 
to  truth ;  or  he  will  yield  himself  to  speculative  doubts 
about  facts  which  he  has  studied  as  barren  theories. 
But  a  working  student,  who  is  searching  for  truth  on  its 
practical  side,  that  he  may  carry  it  out  from  his  study 
as  the  material  for  living  appeal  from  the  pulpit,  or  as 
strength,  wisdom,  guidance,  or  consolation  to  those  who 
need  it  for  such  uses,  will  never  be  a  dreamer  or  a  scep- 
tic. Still  he  may  be  a  bigot,  narrow-minded,  prejudiced, 
and  but  half  furnished  for  his  high  offices.  His  security 
against  these  vices  and  limitations  of  his  profession 
must  be  found  in  catholic  studies  and  in  a  well-disci- 
plined heart.  Considering  the  oracular  authority  which 
for  ages  has  been  assigned  to  Christian  ministers,  the 
more  oracular,  too,  according  to  the  narrowness  of  their 
sphere  and  the  mystifications  of  their  utterances,  we 
may  well  regard  their  incessant  controversies  as,  on  the 
whole,  valuable  as  mutual  restraints  and  correctives  of 
each  other's  narrowness. 

But  our  own  age  affords  opportunities  for  something 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

better  than  mere  controversy.  When  we  consider  what 
treasures  are  heaped  for  our  use,  the  fruits  of  toiling 
brains  and  of  earnest  hearts,  gathered  from  the  briery 
fields  of  truth,  the  least  that  we  can  do  to  prove  our 
gratitude  for  them  is  to  use  them  so  as  to  vindicate  their 
value.  There  is  no  drearier  view  of  the  application  of 
the  dismal  sentence  of  "  Vanity  "  to  all  human  pursuits, 
than  that  which  would  persuade  us  that  it  has  a  special 
force  when  assigned  to  the  tasks  of  mind  and  soul  in 
search  of  speculative  and  theoretical  truth.  Most  forlorn, 
and  dispiriting  would  be  the  conviction,  that  the  way 
which  we  fondly  believe  is  a  progress  onward,  is  only  a 
circular  path  over  the  trodden  ways  of  doubt,  uncer- 
tainty, and  error.  Nor  does  it  satisfy  us  that  the  yield 
of  knowledge  should  only  be  larger  in  the  sense  of  in- 
crease in  the  world's  grain-harvests,  as  feeding  more 
minds.  We  want  our  increase  of  knowledge  to  be  also 
an  increase  in  the  relative  amount  of  truth  in  it. 

The  influences  which  now  prevail  in  the  religious 
literature  of  the  age  are  such  as  are  highly  favorable  to 
the  harmonizing  and  the  conciliating  of  many  old  strifes. 
The  Christian  student,  while  pursuing  the  largest  cul- 
ture of  his  mind  and  the  serious  training  of  his  heart, 
is  disposed  to  seek  out  affinities,  rather  than  alienations, 
from  among  the  leading  thinkers  in  a  distracted  Chris- 
tendom. Our  old  controversies  come  back  to  us  not 
merely  to  be  reviewed,  but  to  be  sifted,  and  that  we  may 
select  from  them  the  largest  seeds  of  the  truth  or  error 
in  them  for  trial  by  the  new  and  improved  processes 
of  dialectics  and  criticism.  The  conservative  theolo- 
gians, who  insist  upon  clinging  to  the  old  doctrinal 
tenets,  as  a  part  of  their  inheritance  from  ages  of  faith, 
may  be  allowed  to  take  that  stand  as  a  position,  if  they 
will  only  indulge  themselves  in  a  good  outlook  from  it. 
They  love  to  quote  the  counsel  of  the  Lord  spoken  by 
the  prophet,  "  Stand  ye  in  the  way,  in  the  old  paths  " ; 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

but  they  do  not  heed  the  advice  which  bids  them  ask 
for  "  the  good  way,"  —  a  question  which  implies  a  doubt 
whether  they  are  already  in  it.  It  may  be  too  much  to 
expect  that  the  old  formulas  and  symbols  to  which  have 
been  attached  the  traditional  piety  of  long  centuries, 
and  through  the  help  of  which  we  interpret  the  religious 
life  of  the  great  saints  of  Christendom,  should  be  al- 
lowed to  pass  into  oblivion.  But  we  know  that  these 
are  often  cherished  now-a-days  rather  for  their  associa- 
tions, than  as  adequate  exponents  of  the  faith  of  men 
who  hold  the  foremost  places  of  religious  influence. 
The  attempt  to  run  new  truth  into  the  old  moulds,  in- 
volves a  great  deal  of  that  mystification  of  language, 
and  that  obscurity  of  thought,  which,  together  with  an 
evident  and  most  vigorous  independence  of  mind,  char- 
acterize most  of  the  writers  in  the  school  of  progressive 
theology. 

It  is  with  the  persuasion  that  many  of  the  most  ear- 
nest ministers  and  scholars  of  our  own  time,  encouraged 
by  the  sympathy  of  practical  reformers,  are  breaking 
away  from  the  old  stereotyped  formulas  of  Orthodoxy, 
that  I  have  sought  to  trace  some  of  the  results  of  their 
noble  efforts  in  these  pages.  Such  changes  as  a  "  Lib- 
eral Christian  "  hopes  to  see  realized  must  necessarily  be 
very  slow  in  their  progress,  and  they  will  be  most  grudg- 
ingly allowed  by  those  who  feel  bound  to  resist  them. 
Taking  the  space  of  fifty  years,  covered  by  the  discus- 
sions which  are  here  reviewed,  and  remembering  what 
stupendous  changes  have  transpired  under  the  general 
name  of  progress  and  improvement,  in  most  of  the 
interests  of  human  life,  would  an  intelligent  theologian 
of  any  party  be  willing  to  admit  that  his  own  profes- 
sional pursuits  had  been  stationary  ?  The  annotations 
added  to  new  editions  of  our  old  histories  often  have 
the  effect  of  discrediting  the  text  above  them,  and  of 
entirely  reversing  the  judgment  founded  upon  it.    When 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

the  old  themes  of  controversy  are  reconsidered,  may  we 
not  expect  that  a  comparison  of  the  views  of  the  extreme 
parties  will  help  us,  with  the  aid  of  new  materials,  to 
find  reconciling  processes  for  harmonizing  some  of  them, 
and  positive  conditions  for  deciding  others  of  them  to 
be  true  or  false  ? 

The  terms  Unitarian  and  Orthodox  occur  much  too 
frequently  in  these  pages.  My  pen  has  written  them  so 
often  that  I  have  become  wellnigh  disgusted  with  them. 
As  they  have  come  back  to  me  in  the  proof-sheets, 
strewn  all  over  the  paragraphs  of  each  of  the  following 
essays,  I  have  wished  that  I  had  agreed  with  printers 
and  readers  upon  some  symbol  or  cipher  which,  like  an 
algebraical  sign,  should  express  the  unknown  element 
signified  by  each  of  them.  Of  course  I  have  had  to 
use  the  terms  under  their  popular  signification.  Some 
one  may  ask,  Why  object  to  their  use  in  all  necessary 
discussions,  if  they  have  a  well  understood  and  definite 
meaning  ?  The  difficulty  is,  that  they  have  not  such 
a  distinct  and  self-interpreting  signification.  Each  of 
them,  to  the  majority  of  those  who  use  them,  means 
a  great  deal  more  or  a  great  deal  less  than  is  positively 
essential  to  the  two  sides  of  the  issue  which  they  repre- 
sent. The  term  Orthodoxy  covers  the  whole  faith  of  the 
one  party ;  the  term  Unitarian  is  at  best  but  a  definition 
of  one  of  the  doctrinal  tenets  of  the  other  party.  The 
associations  connected  with  both  the  terms  have  also 
overborne  their  simple  meaning  as  originally  used.  It 
may  be  well  to  remember  that  the  title  Unitarian  was 
forced  upon  those  who  now  bear  it,  and  that,  after  ob- 
jecting to  have  it  assigned  to  them,  finding  that  for  some 
purposes  they,  like  everything  else  in  heaven  or  earth, 
must  have  a  designation  in  the  speech  of  men,  they 
tried  to  make  it  as  intelligible  as  possible.  As  I  shall 
soon  have  occasion  to  explain,  however,  only  a  small 
minority  of  those  who  really  come  under  the  definition 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

have  ever  consented  to  be  known  by  the  title.  The 
inequality  towards  the  two  respective  parties  which 
was  thus  introduced  into  the  controversy,  by  claiming 
for  one  of  them  a  comprehensive  and  honorable  desig- 
nation, and  by  assigning  to  the  other  an  epithet  which 
but  vaguely  expressed  one  tenet  of  their  distinctive 
faith,  has  had  a  bad  influence  all  through  the  course  of 
the  controversy.  Opportunity  was  thus  given  to  the 
Orthodox,  of  which  they  have  always  availed  themselves, 
to  represent  the  faith  of  Unitarians  as  simply  a  negative 
system.  Another  wrong  has  been  done  to  the  Unita- 
rians, by  the  attempt  to  monopolize  the  use  of  the  phrase 
Evangelical  Christians  for  the  designation  of  Trinita- 
rians. Thus  the  smart  of  unjust  reproach  and  of  mis- 
representation has  been  added  to  the  unavoidable  bur- 
den of  a  conscientious  dissent  from  distinctive  orthodox 
dogmas.  The  real  merits  of  the  controversy  have  often 
been  wholly  obscured  by  side  issues.  If,  therefore,  the 
heaped-up  materials  of  the  past  discussions  cannot  be 
made  serviceable  for  some  real  progress  towards  the 
harmonizing  of  differences,  it  will  be  better  to  begin  the 
task  all  anew,  and  to  begin  it  by  the  largest  literary 
bonfire  whose  flames  ever  rose  up  to  heaven.  Much  of 
this  controversial  literature  would  take  the  fire  most 
kindly.  It  has  almost  the  property  of  spontaneous  com- 
bustion.   * 

A  very  remarkable  phenomenon  presents  itself  to  the 
notice  of  one  who  is  interested  in  Unitarianism,  whether 
as  a  friend  or  as  an  opponent  of  it.  It  is  this,  that  the 
large  majority  of  those  who  really  come  under  its  sub- 
stantial definition,  and  actually  receive  Christian  truth 
in  that  interpretation  of  it,  cannot  be  brought  into  a 
sectarian  acknowledgment  of  it,  still  less  into  any  active 
association  for  its  defence  or  extension.  The  apathy, 
the  indifference  of  "  Liberal  Christians,"  their  lack  of 
zeal  in  any  measures  of  proselytism,  their  willingness 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

to  remain  quietly  in  other  communions,  indulging  their 
own  convictions,  and  never  inviting  attention  upon  their 
real  dissent  from  their  own  nominal  associations,  are 
characteristics  peculiar  to  this  class  of  Christians.  All 
other  sects  draw  in  a  far  larger  proportion,  if  not  the 
whole,  and  sometimes  even  more  than  the  whole,  of  those 
who  accept  their  distinctive  views.  Persecution  and 
reproach  have  been  found  to  be  among  the  strongest 
forces  of  attraction  for  consolidating  other  sects  out  of 
all  those  really  in  sympathy  with  them.  Nearly  every 
Christian  sect  bears  a  name  which  was  first  given  to  it 
in  contempt.  Yet  this  never  hindered  any  one  who  held 
its  distinctive  tenets  from  yielding  himself  up  to  the 
name,  or  taking  it  voluntarily  upon  him  at  the  time 
when  the  name  was  most  opprobrious,  the  date  of  its 
first  use.  The  title  Christian  was  first  given  to  the  dis- 
ciples in  scorn ;  but  all  to  whom  it  belonged  were  glad 
to  accept  it,  till  they  made  it  so  honored  that  it  became 
an  object  to  bear  it,  and  many  then  and  ever  since  have 
received  it  without  any  just  title  to  it.  The  epithets 
Reformers  and  Protestants,  instead  of  being  assumed, 
were  visited  as  insults  upon  the  heretics  of  the  first  age 
in  which  the  Roman  Church  was  assailed ;  but  they 
were  cheerfully  accepted  as  names  to  be  answered  to  by 
all  who  were  entitled  to  them,  and  were  thus  very  soon 
lifted  into  honorary  definitions  for  public  documents 
and  solemn  confessions.  So,  also,  the  epithet  Puritan 
was  as  much  a  term  of  contempt  from  the  lips  of 
enemies  as  was  the  title  Quakers ;  but  they  kept  off 
no  disciples  through  fear  of  the  scorn  that  went  with 
them.  Indeed,  these  reproachful  designations  may  justly 
be  regarded  as  the  very  watchwords,  or  spells,  which 
called  out  the  sturdy  disciples  of  each  successive  sect, 
and  hardened  their  convictions,  or  at  least  confirmed 
their  allegiance.  But  such  reproach  as  is  conveyed  in  a 
contemptuous   epithet  attached  to   unpopular  opinions 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlll 

has  not  availed  to  call  out  Liberal  Christians  into  the 
ranks  of  avowed  and  aggressive  Unitarianism.  Nor  has 
the  dread  of  this  reproach,  working  in  an  opposite  direc- 
tion, had  the  effect  of  leading  all  to  whom  it  might  at- 
tach to  rest  quiet  under  a  silent  enjoyment  of  their  own 
opinions.  The  fear  of  persecution  or  of  popular  odium 
is  by  no  means  the  most  efficient  cause  which  has  sup- 
pressed their  denominational  zeal.  The  phenomenon 
has  another  explanation.  The  following  pages  bear 
witness  to  the  sharpness  and  pertinacity  with  which 
some  of  the  earlier  Unitarians  have  been  censured  for 
a  concealment  of  their  heresies.  But  it  is  a  matter  for 
surprise  that  Unitarianism  has  not  received  much  sharper 
rebukes  on  the  score  of  the  apathy  of  the  great  majority 
of  its  real  disciples  in  not  assuming  an  antagonistic  or 
sectarian,  or  at  least  an  avowed,  position  in  Christendom. 
The  fact  must  be  granted,  it  must  even  be  proclaimed, 
that  from  the  opening  of  the  controversy,  both  here  and 
in  Great  Britain,  the  majority  of  the  Liberal  party  re- 
fused to  come  into  a  sectarian  organization  bearing  the 
name  Unitarian.  Especially  in  our  own  country  was 
this  fact  observable ;  and  so  strange  is  it  to  many,  both 
friends  and  opponents,  as  to  be  worthy  of  particular 
notice  here.  Some  of  the  scholarly  and  able  men  who 
wrote  most  effectively  against  Calvinism  and  in  defence 
of  Liberal  Christianity  in  our  periodicals  and  essays, 
some  of  the  most  devout  and  earnest  ministers,  whose 
pulpits  rang  with  their  denunciations  of  the  exclusive 
system  and  with  eloquent  expositions  of  our  views,  and 
whole  classes  of  laymen  in  the  professions  and  in  the 
common  walks  of  life,  with  noble  women  not  a  few, 
utterly  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  a  Unitarian 
Association.  Such  dissentients  were  the  majority  from 
the  first,  and  have  ever  since  been  the  majority.  We 
should  not  err  if  we  set  the  proportion  between  them 
and  the  sectarian  Unitarians  at  the  rate  of  ten  to  one. 
b 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

Those  who  are  embraced  in  this  large  majority  have 
never  joined  the  Unitarian  Association,  nor  attended  its 
meetings.  It  has  been  affirmed,  on  excellent  authority, 
that  far  more  copies  of  Orthodox  periodicals  and  news- 
papers and  books  are  circulated  among  Unitarians,  and 
subscribed  for  by  them,  than  of  their  own  sectarian  pub- 
lications. Unitarians  have  given  millions  to  colleges, 
academies,  libraries,  philanthropic  and  charitable  insti- 
tutions, from  whom  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 
draw  a  single  dollar  for  the  "  Association."  Even  the 
Association  itself  is  one  of  the  least  antagonistic  of  all 
sectarian  organizations.  Its  dignity,  calmness,  caution, 
and  moderation  keep  down  the  fervors  of  its  zeal,  and 
temper  the  ardor  of  its  proselytism.  It  has  from  the 
first  been  rather  a  philanthropic  than  a  sectarian  agency. 
Its  "  book  fund "  has  proved  its  most  popular  measure, 
and  one  of  the  most  acceptable  of  its  publications  is  a 
volume  of  essays  from  liberal  Orthodox  writers. 

And  now,  what  is  the  explanation  of  the  fact,  that, 
from  the  first  antagonistic  manifestation  of  Unitarian- 
ism  to  the  present  hour,  the.  majority  of  those  who  really 
accept  the  substance  of  it,  including  many  of  its  very 
foremost  disciples,  would  not  and  will  not  come  under 
any  association  bearing  the  name,  or  engage  in  any 
direct  sectarian  assault  upon  views  which  they  reject? 
There  have  been  two  reasons  —  reasons,  I  must  add,  of 
very  great  force  and  cogency  —  assigned  by  such  per- 
sons, by  word  of  mouth,  or  in  their  writings,  in  explana- 
tion (they  would  not  have  said,  in  justification)  of  their 
course.  As  these  reasons  operate  so  strongly  in  my 
own  mind  as  to  repress  in  me  any  intenseness  of  secta- 
rian zeal,  in  spite  of  my  having  written  this  book,  I  shall 
state  them  in  a  way  to  manifest  my  own  accordance 
with  them. 

The  first  of  these  reasons  was  a  strong  objection, 
amounting  to  an  absolute  repugnance,  to  assuming  the 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

name  Unitarian  as  defining  what  was  peculiar  in  the 
faith  of  dissenters  from  Orthodoxy.  The  epithet  was 
objectionable  to  them  alike  on  positive  and  on  negative 
grounds.  There  were  some  who  insisted  that  the  Trin- 
itarian theory  about  the  Godhead  was  to  them  a  matter 
of  no  importance  whatever.  The  theory,  under  the  form 
of  a  modal  or  historical  Trinity,  like  that  which  Dr. 
Bushnell  has  within  a  few  years  developed,  was  so  far 
from  being  offensive  to  them,  that  they  might  even  be 
willing  to  accept  it.  Trinitarians,  too,  might  insist  that 
they  also  were  Unitarians.  At  any  rate,  the  epithet, 
whether  ill-chosen  or  significant  as  far  as  related  to  the 
one  point  on  which  it  designated  a  doctrinal  belief,  ex- 
pressed dissent  from  only  the  least  offensive  of  all  the 
five  points  of  Calvinism.  The  doctrine,  that  God  visited 
the  guilt  of  Adam's  personal  sin  upon  the  unborn  mil- 
lions of  his  posterity,  or  at  any  rate  subjected  them  on 
his  account  to  an  undiminished  responsibility  though 
with  an  impaired  ability,  was  infinitely  more  objection- 
able to  some  Liberal  Christians  than  the  Trinitarian 
theory.  If  they  must  needs  bear  any  sectarian  name, 
they  should  prefer  to  choose  one  which  would  express 
their  protest  against  the  doctrine  of  the  entailed  corrup- 
tion and  condemnation  of  human  nature.  Others  laid 
the  stress  of  their  repugnance  to  Orthodoxy  to  the  ac- 
count of  the  old  notion  of  an  atonement  made  to  God 
by  the  vicarious  sufferings  of  an  innocent  victim.  There 
was  something  so  hideously  heathenish  in  this  dogma, 
that  they  regarded  a  contention  about  the  mode  of  the 
Divine  existence  to  be  relatively  of  no  importance  what- 
ever when  compared  with  a  notion  so  revolting  to  their 
moral  sense.  The  objection,  therefore,  was,  that  the 
epithet  Unitarian  was  neither  significant,  comprehensive, 
nor  distinctive  enough  to  serve  as  a  designation  of  their 
protests  against  Orthodoxy.  It  was  a  name  that  did 
not  carry  with  it  a  definition.     It  would  as  well  befit  a 


XVI  INTRODUCTION. 

Mohammedan  or  a  Jew,  as  a  Christian.  It  carried  with 
it  so  small  a  part  of  a  liberal  Christian's  creed,  and  con- 
veyed so  slight  a  portion  of  the  grounds  of  his  dissent 
from  prevailing  views  of  religion,  that  it  was  rather  an 
evasion  than  an  announcement  of  the  antagonistic  posi- 
tion assumed  by  him.  It  would  need  to  be  explained 
whenever  it  was  used.  If  those  who  assumed  it  did 
not  fill  it  out  by  some  complementary  definitions,  they 
would  need  to  apologize  for  making  a  proclamation 
which  defined  neither  their  foes  nor  their  friends.  The 
opponents  of  Unitarians,  it  was  added,  would  supple- 
ment the  epithet  by  additional  definitions  of  their  own, 
and  it  would  soon  appear  that  those  who  had  been  will- 
ing to  assume  the  title  would  have  to  take  with  it  a 
creed  about  other  doctrines  fabricated  for  them  by  oth- 
ers, because  they  had  promulgated  none  of  their  own. 

As  a  part  of  this  objection,  too,  many  of  the  liberal 
party  protested  against  the  introduction  into  common 
usage  among  Christians  of  any  other  sectarian  name. 
There  were  too  many  such  names  already.  They  were 
simply  mischievous  and  alienating  in  their  effects.  The 
disciples  were  called  Christians  first  at  Antioch ;  and  it 
was  a  pity  that  they  had  ever  been  called  anything  else 
anywhere  else.  It  should  be  one  of  the  most  desirable 
objects  of  zeal  and  effort  among  Christians,  to  get  rid  of 
the  sectarian  names  now  in  use.  He  was  a  seditious 
and  troublesome  person,  who  invented  or  was  willing  to 
bear  any  new  designation  of  the  kind.  We,  at  least, 
was  the  closing  plea,  will  not  consent  to  have  this  label 
attached  to  us.  We  may  agree  with  the  generally 
understood  views  of  Unitarians,  we  may  sympathize 
with  their  objects,  and  pray  for  such  reforms  in  faith  and 
the  methods  of  true  piety  as  they  favor,  and  we  are  in 
heart,  mind,  and  soul  utter  foes  of  Calvinism.  But  do 
not  compel  us  to  bear  the  epithet  Unitarian.  We  will 
not  join  an  association  bearing  that  epithet.     We  advise 


INTRODUCTION.  XVll 

you  not  to  form  such  an  association,  for  the  moment 
you  do  so,  you  will  raise  new  enemies,  and  concentrate 
new  opposition,  and  check  the  progress  of  the  very 
views  which  you  are  aiming  unwisely  to  advance. 

The  second  reason  urged  as  an  objection  to  the  band- 
ing together  of  a  new  sect  under  the  title  of  Unitarian- 
ism  was,  and  is,  that  it  is  impossible  to  construct  a  plat- 
form, as  the  word  is,  which  will  include  all  who  really 
come  under  the  designation,  and  exclude  all  undesirable 
associates  who  might  claim  to  attach  themselves  to  the 
party.  Those  who  have  protested  as  earnestly  as  have 
Liberal  Christians  against  the  setting  up  of  religious 
tests,  or  the  imposition  of  creeds,  would  find  it  very 
difficult  to  fashion  or  to  impose  a  creed  of  their  own. 
Yet  they  must  have  a  creed.  They  may  have  a  very 
stringent  and  definite  one  in  their  own  minds,  as  a  state- 
ment of  their  own  Christian  faith,  and  as  a  virtual  test 
for  deciding  whether  their  neighbors  are  fairly  entitled 
to  be  called  Christian  believers.  But  this  private  creed 
will  not  admit  of  publication.  They  must  have  another 
for  use,  for  announcement,  as  the  basis  of  fellowship,  as 
the  first  article  in  the  Constitution  of  an  Association. 
This  must  necessarily  be  very  loose  and  free,  in  order 
not  to  be  inconsistent  with  their  ultra  Protestantism. 
But  if  thus  loose  and  free,  it  will  invite  in  all  sorts  of 
loose  believers,  all  unsettled,  visionary,  sceptical  persons 
and  unbelievers  who  want  to  have  the  name  of  a  home, 
if  only  as  a  fiction  for  satisfying  them  that  they  are  not 
living  absolutely  out  of  doors.  Unitarianism  will  thus 
become  virtually  responsible  for  all  the  eccentric  specu- 
lations and  absurdities  that  may  be  rife  in  a  community. 
We  have  no  idea  of  being  mixed  up  with  any  such  mis- 
cellaneous oddities  as  these,  said  the  objectors,  so  we 
will  not  join  your  Association,  nor  identify  ourselves 
with  your  sectarian  name  or  measures. 

These  objections  furnished  good  reasons  to  a  large 


XV111  INTRODUCTION. 

number  of  intelligent  and  serious  persons  for  keeping 
aloof  from  a  Unitarian  sect.  They  admit  of  a  great 
variety  in  the  modes  in  which  they  would  influence  fas- 
tidious, timid,  or  conscientious  persons.  The  most 
thoughtful  and  best  informed  of  those  who  felt  and 
yielded  to  their  force,  reminded  themselves  of  the  condi- 
tions under  which  Liberal  Christianity  had  manifested 
itself  in  different  places  and  fellowships,  and  of  the  sort 
of  minds  and  hearts  with  which  it  had  proved  its  con- 
geniality. They  knew  very  well  from  these  conditions 
that  it  admitted  of  no  forcing  process,  that,  to  be  health- 
fully cherished,  it  must  be  spontaneously  recognized. 
They  loved  to  feel  the  power  of  that  sympathy  which 
united  them  with  such  men  as  Grotius,  LeClerc,  Locke, 
Milton,  Newton,  Whitby,  and  Lardner.  They  believed 
that  all  that  was  excellent  and  true  in  what  was  known 
as  Unitarianism  would  be  fostered  even  in  Orthodox 
communities,  by  influences  which  work  deeper  and 
more  effectively  than  any  sectarian  measures.  They 
were  assured  that  Liberal  Christianity  would  be  checked 
in  its  progress  by  the  formation  of  a  Unitarian  sect. 
Were  they  wrong  or  right  in  this  their  honest  judgment? 
Right  or  wrong,  there  are  those  among  the  living  who 
accord  with  their  views,  and  who  hold  them  with  even  a 
firmer  conviction,  if  possible,  because,  as  they  interpret 
the  facts  of  past  and  present  experience,  they  find  such 
strong  confirmations  of  these  views.  While  Unitarian- 
ism, as  a  form  of  sectarian  Christianity,  finds  a  few  very 
earnest  and  active  friends,  it  is  compelled  to  acquiesce 
in  the  seeming  lukewarmness  of  the  greater  portion  of 
its  real  disciples,  and  to  be  content  with  claiming  hosts 
of  unavowed  friends  in  all  other  communions.  These 
have  been,  and  they  are  still,  the  conditions  under  which 
the  sect  exists  and  manifests  itself.  Its  zealous,  out- 
spoken champions  justify  their  own  sectarian  earnest- 
ness, by  declaring  their  convictions  that  Orthodoxy  is  so 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

harmful  a  thing,  so  unfair  an  exponent  of  true  Christianity, 
so  chargeable  with  the  blame  of  promoting  a  wide-spread 
infidelity,  as  to  demand  of  every  one  emancipated  from 
its  bonds,  not  only  a  rejection  of  it,  and  an  implied 
testimony  against  it,  but  an  active  opposition  to  it  by 
assault  and  a  continuous  warfare.  Those  who  are 
called  lukewarm  or  indifferent  in  this  cause,  who,  though 
virtually  Unitarians,  will  do  nothing  under  the  machin- 
ery of  a  sect  for  its  advancement,  are  perfectly  well 
qualified  to  vindicate  their  position.  They  have  an 
intense  dislike  to  sectarian  strife,  to  party  organizations 
in  religion,  to  the  working  of  all  the  agencies  requisite 
for  such  enterprises.  Their  own  views  of  Christian 
truth  do  not  excite  in  them  any  warm  sympathies  with 
a  cause  which  involves  an  assault  upon  the  views  of 
others.  They  shrink  from  being  implicated  in  votes, 
resolutions,  and  measures,  which  maybe  carried  by.  a 
majority,  in  a  meeting  that  may  not  fairly  represent 
those  who  are  claimed  as  its  constituents.  They  have 
strong  private  friendships,  and  many  affectionate  rela- 
tions with  members  of  other  Christian  communions,  and 
prefer  not  to  subject  these  heart-ties  to  the  rude  trials  of 
controversy.  More  than  all,  these  "  lukewarm  "  Unita- 
rians have  satisfied  themselves  that,  in  our  intelligent 
communities,  so  abundantly  supplied  with  the  means  of 
information,  and  so  divided  by  sects  to  each  of  which 
there  is  a  right  and  a  left  extreme,  true  views  have  so 
free  a  field  that  they  ought  to  be  expected  to  advance 
themselves  by  their  own  inherent  energies. 

The  fact  that  Unitarianism  was  developed  in  this 
community  out  of  Orthodox  Congregationalism,  has 
virtually  committed  it  to  the  church  order  and  mode 
of  worship  which  are  distinctive  of  Congregationalism. 
If  any  one,  who,  by  education,  association,  or  a  strong 
preference  of  his  own,  is  attached  to  the  Episcopal  ritual 
and  mode  of  worship,  becomes  a  Unitarian,  he  must 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

renounce  religious  usages  which  are  very  dear  to  him, 
if  he  would  worship  where  the  doctrines  preached  are 
perfectly  congenial  with  his  own  views.  This  fact  has 
suggested  to  many  the  belief  that  Episcopal  Churches 
throughout  the  land  contain  quite  a  large  number  of 
those  who  are  doctrinally  Unitarians,  but  who  cling  to 
a  ritual  service. 

And  one  more  admission  is  to  be  recognized.  Unita- 
rianism,  in  the  largest  and  most  comprehensive  exposi- 
tion that  can  be  made  of  it,  as  a  form  of  sectarian  Chris- 
tianity, does  not  make  an  exhaustive  statement  of  the 
doctrinal  substance  of  the  Gospel.  The  only  essential 
characteristic  which  it  can  claim,  by  the  laws  of  etymol- 
ogy, as  going  with  its  title,  is  a  belief  in  the  undivided 
unity  of  the  Supreme  Being,  and  a  rejection  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity.  Unitarianism  commits  itself  to  the 
emphatic  denial  that  the  whole  internal  doctrinal  sys- 
tem of  the  Gospel  takes  its  start  from  a  metaphysical 
dogma,  which  parts  the  Godhead  into  three  Personalities. 
Everything  else  that  is  understood  to  go  with  a  profes- 
sion of  Unitarianism,  is  rather  inferential,  than  of  the 
positive  essence  or  substance  of  it.  True,  usage  and  the 
general  understanding  of  things  which  establish  them- 
selves as  a  standard  for  popular  judgment  have  attached 
to  Unitarianism  the  responsibility  of  committing  itself 
to  assertions,  or  at  least  to  negations,  touching  three 
other  doctrines,  —  the  nature  and  rank  of  Christ,  the 
moral  state  and  condition  of  human  beings  at  birth, 
and  the  doctrine  of  reconciliation  or  atonement.  But 
even  as  regards  these  three  doctrines,  the  moment  that 
Unitarianism  is  made  responsible  for  a  belief  or  a  denial 
about  either  of  them,  we  have  to  encounter  professions 
and  protests  which  prove  that  a  supposed  sect  contains 
almost  as  many  creeds  as  individual  members.  There 
is  something  in  the  very  name  Unitarian  which  seems 
to  commit  every  one  who  bears  it  to  the  obligation  of 


INTRODUCTION.  XXI 

being  himself  a  unit  in  some  or  most  of  the  elements  of 
his  creed.  Thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  Unitarians  will 
not  consent  to  be  held  responsible  for  such  definitions  as 
the  Orthodox  may  attach  to  our  speculative  faith  about 
the  three  doctrines  just  referred  to,  nor  will  Unitarians 
allow  their  own  brethren  to  fix  for  them  any  shapings  or 
forms  of  dogmatical  definition  of  those  doctrines. 

As  regards  a  speculative  opinion  about  the  nature 
and  rank  of  Christ,  Unitarians  by  no  means  hold  them- 
selves bound  to  define  and  hold  a  dogma  on  that  pro- 
foundly mysterious  subject.  They  may  agree  in  the 
belief  that  Christ,  in  every  relation  and  office  in  which 
he  is  presented  to  us,  is  subordinated  to  God.  They 
may  all  admit  that  the  practical  ends  of  Christian  piety, 
faith,  obedience,  and  full  redemption,  are  not  made 
dependent,  even  most  remotely,  upon  a  correct  specula- 
tive view  of  the  nature  and  rank  of  Christ.  But  further 
than  this,  Unitarians  do  not  think  alike  or  believe  alike, 
and  they  protest  against  being  classified  under  or  com- 
mitted to  any  view  which  one  of  them  or  any  number 
of  them  may  advance.  They  insist  upon  being  left 
individually  free  to  their  speculations,  and  as  free  to 
attach  what  value  they  may  judge  right  to  these  specu- 
lations, while  in  the  spirit  of  fidelity  and  docility  they 
search  the  Scriptures. 

As  regards  the  natural  state  and  condition  of  men  at 
birth,  Unitarians  would  refuse  to  be  held  accountable 
for  any  theory  which  would  attempt  to  probe  the  mys- 
tery of  sin,  to  account  for  its  power  over  all  human 
beings,  or  to  indicate  the  dividing  line  between  the 
infirmity  coming  from  a  guiltless  misfortune,  and  the 
blameworthiness  which  is  punishable  as  iniquity,  —  these 
being  the  phenomena  pointed  at  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Fall  of  Man.  Unitarians  may  admit  that  sin  in  one 
generation  will  transmit  hereditary  tendencies  to  sin 
in  other  generations,  just  as  diseases  are  transmitted. 


XXU  INTRODUCTION. 

They  may  allow  that  we  are  morally  placed  at  disad- 
vantage, and  made  to  suffer  on  account  of  the  disobedi- 
ence of  our  first  progenitor.  But  Unitarians  in  general 
would  balance  this  allowance  of  theirs  by  an  expression 
of  their  belief  that  the  Divine  demand  upon  us  is  reduced 
in  exact  proportion  to  the  entailed  infirmity,  or  to  the 
impaired  ability  of  human  nature.  A  just  scale  and 
balance  are  the  Lord's,  and  God  requires  just  so  much 
less  of  virtue  and  filial  service  of  each  individual  as 
each  has  lost  of  the  original  rectitude  of  humanity.  On 
the  record  book  of  heaven  each  one  of  us  is  charged 
with  his  obligations ;  but  the  scale  of  those  obligations 
is  graduated  by  ability  and  opportunity,  and  'allows 
abatements  for  all  original  disadvantages.  Not  one 
whit  more  than  this  will  Unitarianism  accept,  either  as 
essential  to  its  positive  doctrine,  or  as  logically  following 
from  its  antagonism  to  Orthodoxy.  All' those  cheap 
charges  visited  upon  it,  as  that  of  making  light  of  sin, 
or  flattering  human  nature,  or  lowering  the  demands  of 
God's  law,  are  but  poor  stratagems  of  controversy. 

As  regards  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  Unitarian- 
ism can  fairly  be  made  answerable  only  for  a  denial  of 
that  constructive  and  inferential  view  of  the  death  of 
the  Redeemer,  which  represents  it  as  regarded  by  God 
as  a  substitute  for  our  sufferings,  and  as  an  essential 
condition  for  the  exercise  of  Divine  mercy  towards  the 
penitent.  Those  who  repudiate  the  dogma  of  Ortho- 
doxy on  this  subject,  do  not  hold  themselves  bound  to 
give  an  exhaustive  theory  as  to  the  actual  relation  be- 
tween the  death  of  the  Redeemer  and  the  exercise  of 
God's  grace  towards  sinners.  They  may  advance  infer- 
ences and  constructive  views  of  their  own.  They  may 
admit  a  mystery  about  it  without  attempting  its  solu- 
tion ;  they  may  propose  various  solutions  of  the  mys- 
tery ;  or  they  may  affirm  that  there  is  no  mystery  about 
it,  and  may  proceed  to  define  at  every  point  the  mode 


INTKODUCTION.  XX11] 

in  which  men  are  converted  and  redeemed  and  saved  by 
the  mediatorial  agency  of  Christ.  But  it  would  be 
difficult  to  make  Unitarians,  as  a  body,  responsible  for 
any  positive  dogma  on  this  subject. 

Thus  we   see  that,  even  as  regards  the  three  great 
themes  of  controverted  divinity,  about  which  Unitarian- 
ism  is   generally  regarded,   not  only  as  in  most  direct 
antagonism  with  Orthodoxy,  but  as  most  positively  com- 
mitted to  theories  of  its  own,  there  is  room  for  the  wid- 
est possible  range  of   speculation.      Hence    arises   the 
difficulty  of  drawing  out  a  Unitarian  creed.     But  these 
three  themes  of  Christian  divinity  constitute  but  a  por- 
tion of  its  whole   substance  and  materials.     There  is  a 
whole  field  of  speculation   still  left  filled  by  doctrines 
not  appropriated  exclusively  to  Orthodoxy  or  Unitarian- 
ism.    There  are  metaphysical  and  spiritual  themes  opened 
in  the  pages  of  Scripture,  about  which  Unitarians  may 
speculate  and  believe  very  differently,  and  about  which 
their  respective  views  may  have  such  influence  upon 
their  sympathies  as  to  alienate  them  farther  from  the 
Orthodox,  or  almost  to  reconcile  their  differences  with 
them.     Such  doctrinal  themes  as  these :    the  presence 
of  Christ  with  his  Church,  and  the  relation  between  him 
and  the  disciple,  his  office  as  Intercessor  and  Advocate ; 
the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  \  the  method  and  test  of 
regeneration ;  the  doctrine  of  justification,  i.  e.  of  being 
brought   into  a  right  and   reconciled  state  with   God, 
through   the   efficacious   working   of   a   living  internal 
energy  of  faith,  rather  than  by  fulfilling  the  conditions 
of  an  external  law ;  the  doctrine  of  the  sacraments ;  the 
retributive   sanctions  and  penalties  connected  with  the 
Gospel  rule  of  accountability ;  —  such  doctrinal  themes 
as  these,  and  many  more  that  might  be  mentioned,  offer 
themselves  as  wholly  and  alike  unprejudiced  by  a  belief 
or  a  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.     Unitarians 
claim  a  full  share  with  other  Christians  in  the  preroga- 


XXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

tives  of  free  inquiry  and  free  belief  on  all  these  themes. 
Their  differences  of  speculative  opinion  and  of  devo- 
tional sentiment  in  reference  to  these  themes  do  virtu- 
ally divide  them  into  many  schools  and  fellowships,  or 
rather  prevent  their  consolidation  into  a  sect. 

Here,  then,  is  evidence  enough  that  there  may  be 
views  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  of  the  law  and  method 
of  Christian  life,  which  may  be  distinguished  from  Uni- 
tarianism  by  the  title  of  "  Liberal  Christianity."  And 
yet  more  and  further,  there  are  such  views  of  Christian 
truth  which  are  in  irreconcilable  hostility  with  Ortho- 
doxy, but  which  refuse  to  recognize  themselves  even 
under  this  latter  designation,  of  "  Liberal  Christianity." 
For  though  some  have  preferred  this  to  Unitarianism, 
others  regard  it  as  vague,  assuming,  and  offensive  to 
good  taste. 

In  view  of  all  these  facts,  I  can  well  conceive  that  one 
whose  zeal  for  Orthodoxy  prompts  him  to  assail  Unita- 
rianism, may  raise  the  reasonable  objection,  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  define  and  identify  his  foe.  This 
is  indeed  the  case.  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  relieve  his 
perplexity,  except  by  suggesting  to  him  the  expediency 
of  giving  over  his  hostile  purpose.  If  he  does  not  know 
against  what  to  aim,  his  blows  may  fall  where  he  would 
not  have  them  strike.  -  He  may  hit  some  of  his  own 
friends.  There  will  always,  however,  be  enough  to 
assume  the  Unitarian  name,  and  to  avow  its  sectarian 
zeal,  to  serve  as  a  mark  for  Orthodox  championship. 
My  own  personal  interest  does  not  go  with  the  contro- 
versy in  any  of  its  details  or  subordinate  elements.  The 
theme  of  the  seventh  of  the  following  Essays  is  the  one 
which  carries  with  it  my  heart  and  hope.  The  New 
Theology  has,  as  I  believe,  dealt  a  mortal  blow  upon 
the  old  Orthodoxy.  It  will  cause  me  but  little  regret  if 
it  can  establish  the  truth  for  which  it  is  seeking  in  the 
place  which  sectarian  Unitarianism  has  sought,  thus  far 
in  vain,  to  plant  itself. 


A   HALF-CENTURY 


OP  THE 


UNITARIAN  CONTROVERSY. 


UNIVERSITY] 
A    HALF-CENTURY 

OF 

THE   UNITARIAN   CONTROVERSY. 


The  caption  of  these  remarks  will  be  a  summons  that 
may  stir  the  memories  of  a  few  of  the  eldest  of  our  read- 
ers. The  era  referred  to  is  longer  far  than  our  own  re- 
membrances will  cover,  and  therefore  we  say  at  the  out- 
set, that  we  are  to  write  upon  the  theme  with  the  help  of 
records,  and  principally  for  that  other  class  of  our  readers 
who  must  also  trust  to  records  for  their  knowledge  of 
what  transpired  a  half-century  ago. 

It  is  now  just  fifty  years  since  a  controversy  still  in 
progress  was  opened  in  this  Commonwealth  between  two 
parties  who  were  held  by  a  relation  of  mutual  interest? 
because  they  constituted  together  the  old  Congregational 
body,  and  who  were  brought  into  a  relation  of  painful 
antagonism  because  they  were  divided  by  a  serious 
issue  in  matters  of  Christian  doctrine.  The  suggestion 
presses  itself  upon  us  with  something  like  the  solemnity 
of  a  religious  obligation,  that  we  ought  to  sum  up  for 
present  use  the  best  lessons  we  can  gather  from  a  review 
of  that  space  of  years.  A  vast  amount  of  time  and 
thought  and  zeal  has  been  spent  upon  the  controversy 
which  then  arose.     A  mass  of  literature,  in  newspapers, 


4  SECTARIAN  TITLES. 

pamphlets,  periodicals,  and  solid  volumes,  has  accumu- 
lated, presenting  both  sides  of  the  controversy  in  all  its 
details,  in  every  possible  light.  The  present  relation 
between  the  parties  to  that  strife,  though  it  may  still  pre- 
serve some  painful  remembrances  of  mutual  wrongs,  and 
is  still  in  many  respects  a  relation  of  opposition,  is,  on 
the  whole,  highly  favorable  to  a  fair  reconsideration  of 
the  points  on  which  they  are  intelligently  and  conscien- 
tiously divided. 

In  reviewing,  as  in  a  series  of  papers  it  is  our  purpose 
to  do,  some  of  the  more  important  elements  of  that  con- 
troversy, we  wish  to  avoid  every  matter  of  acrimony  and 
strife.  If  we  know  our  own  intention,  it  is  one  that  looks 
beyond  any  narrow,  sectarian  aim.  We  extend  the  hand 
of  reconciliation,  and  address  the  word  of  fraternal  friend- 
ship, to  any  member  of  the  other  fellowship  of  our  di- 
vided household,  who  is  ready  to  listen  to  what  we  may 
be  able  to  say,  in  a  spirit  becoming  a  Christian,  concern- 
ing the  present  aspect  of  our  ancient  strife.  "We  believe 
that  some  approach  to  harmony  may  be  made  in  defin- 
ing the  points  of  difference  between  us  as  they  now 
stand,  cleared  from  former  animosities,  and  tested  by 
the  trial  made  of  them  by  a  generation  of  departed 
champions.  For  the  sake  of  convenience  and  brevity, 
we  shall  freely  use  the  terms  Unitarian  and  Orthodox  to 
designate  the  two  parties.  Our  own  sense  of  perfect 
justice  to  our  predecessors  would  dispose  us  to  use  the 
word  Calvinist  instead  of  the  word  Orthodox,  for  it  was 
Calvinism,  the  real  concrete  system  of  the  Genevan  Re- 
former, and  not  the  vague  and  undefined  abstraction  en- 
titled Orthodoxy,  which  our  predecessors  assailed.  We 
might  also  plead,  that  a  due  respect  for  the  strong  prefer- 
ences of  many  of  the  early  advocates  of  our  views  dic- 
tated the  application  to  them  of  the  name  of  Liberal 
Christians,  rather  than  that  of  Unitarians.  But  we  shall 
content  ourselves  with  saying  just  what  we  have  said  on 


A   PACIFIED    STRIFE.  0 

the  matter  of  names,  and  with  saying  no  more.  The 
terms  Unitarian  and  Orthodox,  which  we  have  just  ac- 
cepted, may  be  used  without  the  offence  of  allowance,  of 
assumption,  or  of  censure,  to  designate  the  parties  to  the 
controversy.-  That  controversy  in  its  early  and  midway 
stages  was  connected  with  many  irritating  and  embitter- 
ing circumstances,  which  we  must  recognize  only  as  mat- 
ters of  history,  dealing  with  them  as  with  the  ashes  that 
are  cooled,  and  will  not  admit  of  being  kindled  again. 
Much  of  the  mutual  misrepresentation,  and  many  of  the 
extreme  measures  and  statements  on  both  sides,  are  to 
be  charged  upon  the  acrimony  involved  in  the  contro- 
versy. Thus  the  real  issue  opened  in  the  controversy  as 
agitating  simply  and  only  the  question,  What  are  the 
doctrines  of  the  Gospel  as  taught  in  the  Bible?  was  to 
many  minds  hopelessly  perplexed  and  obscured.  We 
are  to  review  the  strife  of  fifty  years  solely  to  learn  what 
that  real  issue  was,  and  how  it  stands  between  us  now. 
We  can  put  aside  all  mean  partialities,  all  unchristian 
animosities,  all  heats  of  temper  kindled  by  collisions 
which  embittered  the  relations  of  neighbors  and  house- 
holds, which  referred  themselves  for  adjudication  to  the 
highest  tribunals  of  the  State,  and  even  assailed  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  decisions  there  pronounced  upon  them. 

An  opinion  or  sentiment  which  has  found  an  exten- 
sive prevalence,  and  has  been  gratefully  entertained  by 
members  of  both  parties,  recognizes  some  present  signs 
of  concilation  between  them.  This  welcome  recognition 
makes  account  not  only  of  buried  animosities  and  an 
oblivion  of  some  old  strifes,  but  discerns  a  tendency  to 
modify  and  harmonize  our  respective  creeds,  and  to  come 
together  at  some  point  that  lies  between  us.  Our  own 
opinion  on  that  question,  if  given  at  all,  will  be  expressed 
only  through  inferences.  We  are  aware  that  to  many 
persons  an  individual  opinion  in  such  a  case  is  without 
value,  because  it  can  have  no  positive  authority ;  while 


6  EXPECTATIONS   OF  PARTIES. 

those  who  would  allow  it  any  weight  would  regard  it  as 
cast  into  the  right  or  the  wrong  scale,  according  as  it 
coincided  or  clashed  with  their  own  opinion.  We  cer- 
tainly hope,  however,  that  after  we  have  exhibited  in 
these  papers  the  present  aspect  of  the  controversy,  as  de- 
fined by  the  principal  points  now  at  issue  cleared  of  all 
irrelevant  matter,  we  shall  have  furnished  some  means 
to  help  an  intelligent  decision  on  the  opinion  just  referred 
to.  At  the  close  of  this  introductory  sketch  we  shall 
state  three  great  doctrinal  positions,  which,  in  our  view, 
constitute  the  essence  and  substance  of  our  side  of  the 
controversy,  and  which  it  is  our  intention  to  treat  in  sub- 
sequent papers.  Under  the  epithet  of  Unitarianism  have 
been  classed  a  great  many  individual  speculations,  ec- 
centric notions,  extreme  views  and  opinions  on  various 
religious  matters,  which  are  not  essential  to  the  substance 
of  Unitarianism  as  a  method  of  defining  the  doctrinal 
system  of  the  Gospel.  There  was  also  left  between  the 
parties  a  middle  ground,  embracing  much  of  the  doc- 
trinal and  evangelical  substance  of  our  religion,  which 
was  open  to  the  free  enjoyment  and  use,  to  the  belief  or 
the  denial,  the  speculations  or  the  dogmatism,  of  either 
side,  and  concerning  which  a  member  of  either  party 
might  hold  the  same  opinions,  or  might  be  wholly  at 
issue  with  a  member  of  his  own  or  of  the  other  party, 
without  involving  the  distinctive  creed  of  Unitarianism 
or  Orthodoxy.  We  shall  have  a  word  to  add  on  this 
point  before  we  close. 

When  the  controversy  opened,  no  one  knew  to  what 
result  it  would  lead.  But  so  far  as  either  party  had 
formed  any  definite  expectations,  founded  on  their  own 
wishes,  as  to  what  it  would  bring  to  pass,  we  may  ven- 
ture to  say  that  both  parties  have  been  disappointed. 
The  Unitarians  expected  that  the  change  of  opinion 
which  had  long  been  gradually  working,  and  which  had 
been  brought  to  a  crisis  on  the  opening  of  the  contro- 


THEIR  QUALIFIED   SUCCESS.  7 

versy,  would  advance  more  rapidly  through  discussion 
and  division,  till,  before  the  interval  of  fifty  years  had,  as 
now,  elapsed,  Orthodoxy  would  have  become  a  thing 
of  the  past,  while  Unitarianism  would  be  the  prevail- 
ing type  of  religion.  Unitarians  did  expect  this  rapid 
success,  this  form  of  a  triumph,  and  they  have  been 
disappointed.  The  Orthodox,  on  their  part,  expected 
that  they  should  succeed  in  putting  down  and  utterly 
extirpating  Unitarianism,  by  identifying  it  with  infidelity, 
and  by  discrediting  all  its  show  of  argument  from  Scrip- 
ture and  Christian  history,  if  not  from  reason.  This  was 
really  the  purpose  and  the  aim  of  Orthodoxy ;  but  the 
purpose  has  been  thwarted,  the  aim  has  not  been  at- 
tained. 

It  may,  however,  be  affirmed,  with  a  good  show  of 
plausibility,  that  while  neither  party  has  realized  its  ex- 
pectation in  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  full  statement 
just  made,  both  parties  have  in  fact  approximated  to  the 
substantial  results  which  they  had  in  view ;  both  have 
realized  their  aims  in  a  qualified  form.  The  Unitarian 
may  say  that  the  old  Orthodoxy  has  been  extirpated,  as 
the  modern  shape  and  temper  of  it  are  greatly  unlike  the 
old  Calvinism  that  we  assailed  when  it  was  nominally 
believed  and  theoretically  defended.  The  dissensions 
which  have  divided  that  once  united  party  into  schools^ 
(a  very  kindly  name  for  them,)  and  the  ingenious  eva- 
sions, devices,  and  speculations  which  have  essayed  to 
abate  the  offensive  qualities  of  Orthodoxy,  might  be 
turned  to  great  account  in  proving  that  the  Unitarian 
controversy  has  accomplished  its  main  intent.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Orthodox  party  may  affirm,  that  Unita- 
rians have  received,  and  been  compelled  to  listen  to,  a 
warning,  —  a  real  warning,  not  without  visible  tokens  of 
its  painful  penalties ;  that,  if  Unitarianism  consistently 
and  logically  followed  out  what  seemed  to  be  some  of 
its  first  principles,  they  would  lead  it  to  infidelity,  would 


8  BITTERNESS  OF  THE  CONTROVERSY. 

manifest  the  lack  of  the  Gospel  element  in  declining 
churches  and  in  a  wasting  of  the  life  and  energies  of  true 
Christian  piety.  "Whether  certain  results  which  have 
been  reached  by  some  who  were  once  Unitarians  should 
serve  as  a  satisfactory  demonstration  of  the  truth  of  pre- 
dictions uttered  fifty  years  ago,  will  be  considered  by 
some  of  the  Orthodox  as  a  question  not  admitting  de- 
bate, but  as  decided  in  the  affirmative  by  facts  that  have 
transpired  in  this  community.  Candor,  however,  will 
plead  that  this  decision  be  arrested,  till  the  appearance 
of  infidelity  in  other  places,  and  apart  from  all  the  agen- 
cies of  Unitarianism,  and  in  the  closest  connection  with 
Orthodoxy,  has  been  fairly  accounted  for.  Transcen- 
dentalism —  that  hard  word  for  expressing  an  unwhole- 
some fog  —  was  not  a  native  emanation  from  New  Eng- 
land or  from  Unitarianism. 

We  have  read  over  many  wearisome  and  painful,  as 
well  as  many  most  instructive  pages,  on  both  sides  of  this 
half-century  of  controversy.  As  we  have  read  the  history 
backwards,  its  earlier  pages  are  for  the  hour  most  fresh 
in  our  thoughts,  and  these  are  unfortunately  its  most  of- 
fensive and  irritating  pages.  As  we  have  perused  some 
of  these  sharp  and  bitter  documents,  we  have  been 
tempted  to  impugn  the  truth  of  a  thousand  essays  and 
of  ten  thousand  commonplaces  about  the  value  of  the 
press  in  diffusing  light  and  in  dispelling  error,  and  to 
yield,  to  a  profound  regret  that  the  world  contains  such 
things  as  types  and  printing-ink.  In  this  frame  of  mind, 
we  ask  ourselves  if  the  documentary  part  of  the  contro- 
versy did  not,  on  the  whole,  do  more  harm  than  good  ? 
Did  it  not  minister  to  strife  ?  Did  it  not  sharpen  pens 
with  passion  and  dip  them  in  gall  ?  Did  not  the  taking 
of  sides  as  writers  addressing  a  larger  circle  than  em- 
braced the  real  disputants,  tempt  to  an  intense,  acrimo- 
nious, and  exaggerated  way  of  treating  the  views  of  op- 
ponents ?     Would  not  the  ordinary  methods  of  dealing 


IRRITATIONS  AND   MISUNDERSTANDINGS.  y 

with  religious  topics  in  preaching  and  in  pastoral  inter- 
course have  relieved  the  controversy  of  much  of  its  bitter- 
ness, and  have  served  far  better  the  ends  of  truth,  and  have 
left  the  relations  of  parties  now  in  a  more  desirable  posi- 
tion ?  Would  not  the  controversial  preaching  of  the 
time  of  strife,  which  also  was  very  heating  and  offensive, 
have  been  much  less  so  had  it  not  been  envenomed  by 
the  poisonous  matter  of  a  thousand  malignant  little 
pamphlets  ?  It  cannot  but  have  been  that  these  docu- 
ments aggravated  the  controversy.  Even  when  former 
friends,  who  have  fallen  out  by  the  way,  begin  to  write 
letters  to  each  other  concerning  their  variances,  they  gen- 
erally cease  from  that  time  forward  to  hold  any  inter- 
course. Our  first  "  religious  newspapers,"  and  some 
other  journals,  were  established  to  aid  in  this  controversy  ; 
and  farmers  and  mechanics  in  the  interior  of  this  State, 
instead  of  being  served  with  an  agricultural  or  scientific 
sheet,  were  solicited  to  work  themselves  up  into  a  theo- 
logical rancor.  Those  who  were  the  least  informed 
about  the  real  issue  that  was  opened,  thus  became  often 
the  most  excited  about  it.  Their  acquaintance  with  the 
controversy  was  confined  to  the  hardest  terms  and  the 
most  irritating  incidents  in  it,  and  their  inquiries,  such  as 
they  were,  made  as  they  were,  and  met  as  they  were,  re- 
sulted only  in  misinformation.  A  sober  second-thought, 
which  transfers  all  the  blame  of  these  hostilities  and  em- 
bitterments  from  the  types  to  the  tempers  of  those  who 
used  them,  draws  us  away  from  these  irritating  pam- 
phlets, with  all  their  personalities,  scandals,  and  misrepre- 
sentations. We  can  but  express  an  emphatic  regret  that 
they  will  always  lie  at  the  threshold  of  this  controversy 
for  those  who  may  concern  themselves  with  its  history. 
The  very  intermeddling  with  them,  even  with  a  kindly 
intent,  makes  one  feel,  as  probably  the  most  pacific  vis- 
itor to  Sebastopol  will  feel  for  years  to  come,  as  he  walks 
over  that  mined  and  powder-impregnated  citadel,  that, 


10  DIFFERENCES  AMONG  BRETHREN. 

though  the  great  batteries  are  silenced,  some  unexploded 
engine  or  some  petty  fuse  may  still  be  rendered  danger- 
ous at  his  touch,  and  may  go  off  and  hit  him. 

The  question  very  naturally  presents  itself  to  the  mind 
of  one  who  calmly  and  candidly  reviews  this  controversy, 
Why  was  there  so  much  of  acrimony  and  passion,  so 
much  of  bitterness  and  animosity,  manifested  in  the  con- 
duct of  it  ?  Why  was  there  such  mutual  hostility,  mis- 
representation, and  uncharitableness  ?  Why  did  any  of 
these  odious  and  wicked  elements  mingle  in  the  strife? 
Considering  the  subject-matter  of  the  controversy  as 
neither  financial,  social,  nor  political,  but  as  simply  a 
matter  of  religion,  where  there  was  no  establishment,  no 
inquisition,  no  prize  of  power,  connected  with  it,  ■ —  con- 
sidering the  end  which  both  parties  had  in  view,  the 
attainment  of  truth  on  matters  of  Scriptural  and  spirit- 
ual interest,  —  considering  the  character  and  standing  of 
the  chief  parties  to  it,  men  of  education,  culture,  refine- 
ment, and  piety,  friends,  classmates,  members  of  the 
same  profession,  and  that  a  sacred  one,  —  considering  all 
these  things,  why  was  the  controversy  so  bitter  and  pas- 
sionate ?  One  might  say  that  the  points  of  difference 
could  have  been  discussed  in  perfect  amity.  The  parties 
to  it  should  have  patiently  aided  each  other  to  discover 
the  truth  ;  they  should  have  corresponded  as  friends  ; 
they  should  have  differed  as  brethren.  Each  might  have 
taught  the  other  ;  each  might  have  learned  from  the 
other.  Some  portion,  more  or  less,  of  their  mutual  ill- 
feeling  would  have  been  abated  by  this  course,  as  cer- 
tainly the  most  offensive  elements  were  introduced  into 
the  controversy  by  the  opposite  course.  It  ought  to  have 
been  thus,  but  it  was  not.  Whether  the  questions  then 
agitated  could  have  been  debated  in  the  spirit  we  have 
indicated,  is  one  of  those  contingencies  which  we  must 
decide  according  to  our  view  of  human  nature.  A 
phrase  which  we  have  just  used  as  to  "  differing  as  breth- 


SERIOUSNESS   OF  THE  ISSUE.  11 

ren,"  reminds  us  that  this  is  generally  the  worst  kind  of 
difference.  Either  party  in  this  controversy  would  have 
debated  its  differences  with  Mahometans  in  a  much 
better  spirit  than  that  in  which  they  discussed  their  dif- 
ferences with  each  other. 

"What  we  have  thus  written,  as  if  reflecting  upon  the 
value  of  the  press,  because  it  was  turned  to  the  service 
of  misrepresentation  and  passion,  must  not  silence  our 
grateful  recognition  of  its  noble  service  to  the  cause  of 
truth  and  charity,  when  its  potent  agency  was  used  by 
wise  and  good,  by  calm  and  moderate  men,  on  either 
side.  There  are  some  noble  and  precious  documents 
called  out  by  the  controversy,  which  will  have  a  perma- 
nent value  as  contributions  to  our  Christian  literature, 
illustrative  of  the  historical,  the  doctrinal,  and  the  experi- 
mental elements  and  evidences  and  working  forces  of 
our  religion. 

It  is  observable,  that  when  the  successors  to  the  par- 
ties in  an  old  feud,  after  the  lapse  of  many  years,  re- 
view the  strife,  if  it  has  been  cleared  of  the  personali- 
ties and  the  acrimony  and  the  rivalries  of  interest  which 
originally  embittered  it,  their  readiness  to  reconsider  the 
issue  in  a  spirit  favorable  to  charity  and  wisdom  will 
often  be  accompanied  by  marked  relentings  of  feeling. 
Sometimes,  however,  these  revulsions  which  follow 
when  all  exciting  passions  have  been  quieted  are  at- 
tended with  some  weaknesses  of  concession,  and  with 
a  tendency  to  depreciate  what  was  once  exaggerated. 
The  two  opposing  parties  did  contend  most  hotly.  The 
Orthodox  measured  their  responsibility  for  zeal  and 
opposition  by  the  obligation  laid  on  them  to  defend  the 
Gospel,  in  all  its  essential  truths,  against  an  insidious 
and  specious  influence,  which  was  undermining  its  foun- 
dations and  destroying  all  its  power  to  redeem  souls  and 
to  save  the  world.  The  Unitarians  defined  the  duty  im- 
posed on  them  to  be  a  purification  of  the  prevailing 


12  TENURE   OF   CALVINISM. 

theology  from  all  those  inventions  and  corruptions  of 
ages  of  superstition,  which  had  impaired  the  power  of 
the  Gospel  and  were  at  the  time  making  at  least  three 
sceptics  or  unbelievers  for  each  single  believer  in  this 
community.  An  additional  motive  prompted  the  Uni- 
tarians, namely,  that  of  vindicating  their  own  right  to 
the  Christian  name,  while  they  exercised  a  liberty  that 
lay  within  the  broad  terms  of  Protestantism.  /  The  issue 
thus  raised  between  the  parties  was  a  momentous  and 
an  exciting  one.  They  mutually  inflamed  each  other ; 
while  embarrassments  growing  out  of  a  sundered  fel- 
lowship, and  hostilities  raised  by  questions  of  rights  in 
former  joint  property,  aggravated  the  strife.  These  era- 
bitterments  of  the  controversy  have  for  the  most  part 
ceased  to  affect  us.  We  must  carefully  distinguish  be- 
tween them  and  the  doctrinal  questions  that  were  agi- 
tated. We  must  do  this  in  order  that  we  may  not 
under-estimate  the  importance  of  the  real  issue,  or  fail  of 
justice  to  the  original  parties  to  it. 

The  paramount  object  recognized  by  both  those  par- 
ties was  to  ascertain  and  defend  the  essential  doctrines 
of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  A  view  of  those  doctrines 
conformed  to  the  system  of  Calvinism  had  long  pre- 
vailed here,  and  according  to  terms  of  law,  that  system 
might  claim  by  right  of  possession,  and  by  established 
authority,  and  by  a  thousand  incidental  results  of  its 
ancient  tenure,  to  hold  a  place  of  power  by  well-certified 
and  almost  unquestioned  warranties  of  Scripture  and 
custom.  The  natural  course  of  things  would  have  in- 
dicated that  any  dissent  from  that  system  should  declare 
itself  by  an  open  dispute,  a  frank,  bold,  and  spontaneous 
challenge  of  its  truth,  its  consistency  with  reason,  or  its 
authority  in  Scripture.  We  might  have  expected  that 
the  dissentients  from  Calvinism  would  have  been  the 
attacking  party.  But  it  was  not  so.  The  dissentients 
were  put  on  the  defensive  at  the  opening  of  the  contro- 


THE   ORIGINAL  DISSENTIENTS   FROM   CALVINISM.         13 

versy.  We  should  insist  upon  this  view  of  the  case, 
even  if  we  admitted  all  that  the  Orthodox  party  alleged 
as  to  the  insidious  and  covert  way  in  which  Unitarian- 
ism  undermined  Calvinism.  The  plea  of  the  defenders 
of  the  old  system  is,  that  by  an  artful  course  of  measures, 
which  included  silence,  concealment,  a  gradual  and 
steady  modification  of  the  tone  and  substance  of  preach- 
ing, and  a  sort  of  tacit  understanding  among  the  leaders 
in  the  manoeuvre,  Orthodoxy  was  assailed  with  a  vast 
deal  more  of  effect  than  would  have  attended  an  open 
declaration  of  hostilities  against  it.  But  this  issue  is 
one  which  it  does  not  belong  to  open  and  avowed  Uni- 
tarians to  assume  as  lying  between  them  and  the  Or- 
thodox. Fairly  understood,  the  issue  lies  between  two 
sections  of  the  Orthodox  party,  and  reaches  far  back 
into  the  last  century.  The  first  men  who  swerved  from 
Calvinism,  who  relaxed  their  faith  in  the  stern  system, 
and  broke  the  covenant  of  rigid  conditions  into  which 
they  had  entered,  were  men  who  would  have  shrunk 
with  dread  from  Unitarianism.  We  do  not  see,  there- 
fore, that  we  are  bound  to  assume  their  cause.  Some  of 
them  were  precisely  where  tolerated  and  honored  cham- 
pions of  Orthodoxy  stand  now.  We  may  claim  them,  in 
one  sense,  as  brethren,  so  far  as  they  were  dissentients 
from  rigid  Orthodoxy,  and  so  far  as  they  fostered  the 
spirit  of  true  religious  freedom.  But  if  any  question  of 
conscientiousness  or  candor  is  raised  by  the  modern 
Orthodox  as  to  the  first  incomings  of  a  latent  and  unac- 
knowledged heresy,  and  as  to  suspicions  of  an  adroit  or 
calculating  management  in  connection  with  it,  we  sub- 
mit that  they  must  argue  the  question  within  their  own 
fellowship,  in  much  the  same  way  in  which  the  cham- 
pions of  their  various  schools  are  arguing  it  now.  The 
first  stages  of  dissent  from  Calvinism  were  the  most  diffi- 
cult and  venturesome  to  make,  the  most  alarming  in 
their  foreshadowings  of  consequences ;  and  those  who 
2 


14  UNCONSCIOUS  DISSENT. 

consciously  passed  through  them  were  most  responsible 
to  their  covenants  and  to  their  brethren.  The  later 
stages  of  that  dissent  were  more  easy  and  less  account- 
able to  any  insulted  or  violated  pledges,  simply  because 
they  were  taken  under  a  relaxed  state  of  doctrinal  senti- 
ment, and  by  men  who,  never  having  pledged  themselves 
to  Calvinism,  had  inherited  a  license  in  speculation  and 
opinion.  The  reason,  then,  why  the  first  dissent  from 
Calvinism  did  not  declare  itself  in  open  attack,  but  was 
reserved  till,  in  a  later  generation,  it  was  compelled  to 
assume  the  defensive  under  the  charge  of  being  just 
hunted  out  from  its  disguises,  —  the  reason  of  the  fact 
seems  to  be,  that  the  godfathers  of  infant  Unitarianism 
would  have  insisted  upon  their  own  orthodoxy,  while 
they  were  entertaining  the  first  misgivings  about  Calvin- 
ism. When  a  man  begins  to  doubt  his  own  views,  he 
does  not  assail  them,  but  he  modifies  them.  It  would 
be  hard  to  hold  his  son  or  grandson,  who  inherits  his 
modification  of  opinions,  responsible,  not  only  for  consist- 
ently following  them  to  their  ultimate  consequences,  but 
also  for  the  original  breach  of  covenant  which  the  parent 
had  to  make  in  entertaining  a  heresy.  But  the  reiterated 
charge,  designed  to  convey  a  great  reproach,  while  it 
accounts  for  a  marvellous  disclosure,  is  this :  "  Unitarian- 
ism came  in  privily."  So  it  did.  So  did  the  Reforma- 
tion come  into  Europe  privily.  So  did  Puritanism  come 
into  Great  Britain  privily.  "What!"  —  we  hear  one  of 
our  modern  echoes  of  the  old  charge  ask,  —  "  What!  did 
not  Luther  and  Knox  and  Baxter  and  their  bold  breth- 
ren make  an  honest  avowal  of  their  dissent  from  the  old 
systems,  and  of  their  hearty  and  pledged  allegiance  to 
new  heresies  ?  "  Most  certainly  they  did.  But  the  "  Re- 
formers before  the  Reformation  "  did  not.  And  so  have 
Unitarians  in  various  places  and  under  most  exciting 
and  painful  consequences  made  the  avowal  of  their  Uni- 
tarianism.     We   contend,   and  we  stand   prepared   to 


GRADUAL   CHANGES   OP   SENTIMENT.  15 

prove,  that  as  soon  as  Unitarianism  recognized  its  own 
features,  it  avowed  itself;  and  as  soon  as  Unitarians  un- 
derstood themselves  as  such,  they  practised  no  conceal- 
ment. For  Unitarianism  not  only  "  came  privily  "  into 
this  community,  but  it  also  came  privily  into  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  its  first  disciples  here.  We  do  not  deny 
that  there  were  men  who,  at  the  crisis  of  the  controversy, 
for  reasons  which  weighed  with  their  own  consciences  or 
sentiments,  assumed  under  Unitarianism  the  same  posi- 
tion —  an  equivocal  one  to  others  —  which  Erasmus  as- 
sumed to  the  Reformation.  Yet  we  think  that  most  of 
these  men  remained  with  the  Orthodox,  as  Erasmus  did 
with  the  Romanists.  We  know  also  that  there  were 
men  of  unquestionable  integrity  and  piety  whose  ac- 
knowledged views  certainly  classed  them  with  Unita- 
rians, who  still  utterly  refused  to  bear  or  answer  to  the 
name.  Still  we  assert,  that  from  the  first  moment  that 
the  presence  and  the  discipleship  of  Unitarianism  were 
here  fully  recognized  by  those  most  concerned  in  it,  it 
was  fully  avowed,  and  never  showed  any  unwillingness 
to  define  and  defend  its  positions.  That  it  did  not  at 
once  recognize  itself  by  a  sectarian  name  —  especially 
at  a  time  when  that  name  in  England  was  suggestive 
rather  of  offensive  political  and  philosophical  than  relig- 
ious opinions  —  is  no  marvel  to  a  candid  mind. 

Even  in  the  papers  emanating  from  the  Orthodox 
party,  one  may  find  scattered,  at  wide  distances,  sen- 
tences that  will  explain  in  a  kindly  way  facts  upon 
which  that  party  sought  to  put  the  harshest  construc- 
tion. Thus  in  the  «  Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims"  (Vol.  II.  p. 
66)  a  very  severe  witness  to  the  insidious  incomings  of 
the  heresy  says :  "  The  change  has  been,  not  sudden, 
but  gradual.  It  has  been  long  in  preparation  and  in 
progress.  It  has  been  accomplished,  in  some  of  its 
stages,  by  slow  and  scarcely  perceptible  degrees.  A  va- 
riety of  causes   have  contributed  to  produce  it."      Dr. 


16  CHARGE   OF   CONCEALMENT. 

Beecher,  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  "Woods,  incidentally  made  a 
most  frank  admission,  when  he  charged  "the  great  de- 
fection from  Evangelical  doctrine  in  this  city  and  re- 
gion "  to  "  the  carelessness  and  negligence  of  former 
generations  of  ministers  and  churches."  (Spirit  of  the 
Pilgrims,  Vol.  V.  p.  393.)  These  words  afford  a  most 
lucid  and  explanatory,  as  well  as  a  most  exculpatory,  rec- 
ognition of  the  development  of  Unitarianism,  —  a  key 
to  the  whole  mystery,  a  release  from  all  insinuations  and 
censures.  The  simple  truth  is,  that  the  change  of  senti- 
ment which  resulted  in  Unitarianism  may  be  traced  dis- 
tinctly, in  three  prominent  stages  of  its  progress,  through 
three  generations  of  ministers.  When  this  fact  is  taken 
in  connection  with  another  important  fact,  —  namely? 
that  before  the  full  development  many  ministers  at  their 
ordination  had  claimed,  and  the  ordaining  councils  had 
yielded  to  them,  an  exemption  from  such  a  profession  of 
doctrinal  opinions  as  would  have  pledged  them  to  Cal- 
vinism, — ■  we  have  the  means  of  relieving  this  subject 
of  a  great  deal  of  mystery,  and,  what  is  more,  of  vindi- 
cating the  moral  honesty  of  a  class  of  men  who  have  often 
been  severely  misjudged. 

The  charge  brought  against  the  early  Unitarians  here, 
of  having  practised  an  adroit  concealment  of  a  change  of 
opinions  through  which  they  had  passed,  also  assigned 
a  motive  in  policy  for  such  concealment.  It  had  been 
practised  "to  deceive  an  unsuspecting  and  confiding 
people,"  by  secretly  undermining  the  prevailing  faith, 
and  by  working  under  covert  towards  a  result  which  the 
deceivers  had  strengthened  themselves  to  meet  when  it 
could  no  longer  be  hidden  from  exposure.  This  charge 
was  reiterated  in  every  shape  and  form,  according  to  the 
taste  in  the  choice  of  language  and  the  private  moral 
standard  of  those  who  uttered  it.  It  was  wrought  in  with 
all  the  arguments  from  logic,  history,  or  Scripture  which 
were  brought  to  bear  upon  the  heresy.     "  The  poison  had 


HISTORICAL  EXPLANATION   OF  THE   CONTROVERSY.       17 

been  working  in  secret."  "  Artful  disguises  had  been  as- 
sumed." "  Guilty  silence  had  been  practised."  "  Insin- 
uating methods  had  been  used."  "  Heretical  books  from 
England  had  been  covertly  circulated  ;  and  others  had 
been  published  here  on  no  apparent  responsibility  but 
that  of  the  bookseller."  "  Some  men  who  would  now 
be  called  Unitarians,  when  charged  with  being  such,  in- 
dignantly denied  it,  or  prevaricated  about  it."  Phrases 
and  sentences  like  these  are  found  on  nearly  every  page 
of  the  controversial  documents  of  one  of  the  parties  in 
this  controversy.  A  seemingly  convincing  proof  of  the 
truth  of  such  assertions  was  furnished  in  the  private  let- 
ters, the  admissions,  or  the  forced  acknowledgments  of 
the  culprits  themselves.  Belsham,  in  his  Memoirs  of 
Lindsey,  had  published  some  private  letters  from  this 
quarter  which  recognized  the  unannounced  presence  and 
prevalence  of  Unitarian  views  among  us.  Dr.  Morse,  of 
Charlestown,  selected  out  and  republished  here,  in  1815, 
this  explosive  matter,  and  then  the  war  indeed  opened  as 
on  the  tented  field. 

It  is  easy  for  us  to  understand  that  this  charge  of  con- 
cealment, with  all  its  severity  of  censure,  might  have 
been  made  in  entire  sincerity,  and  with  a  show  of  evi- 
dence to  support  it,  by  the  one  party ;  while,  at  the  same 
time,  it  does  not  fix  the  slightest  stain  upon  the  charac- 
ters of  those  who  were  the  subjects  of  it.  A  champion 
of  that  generation  of  Unitarians  would  now  undertake  a 
needless  and  a  futile  task,  if  he  should  set  himself  to  vin- 
dicate them  from  the  charge; —  needless,  because  a  simple 
knowledge  of  the  facts  of  the  case  is  a  complete  relief  for 
them  ;  and  futile,  because  those  who  would  censure  them 
in  view  of  these  facts  would  not  yield  to  the  cogency  of 
any  other  plea.  Not  for  their  vindication,  then,  but  merely 
as  a  matter  of  explanatory  history,  will  we  briefly  advert 
to  these  facts. 

First  of  all  stands  the  one,  self-sufficient  fact,  that 
2* 


18  INDEPENDENCY   OF  MINISTERS. 

those  whom  this  charge  involves  were  Independents,  New 
England  Independents.  We  are  very  well  aware  of  the 
admissions  and  assertions  which  were  made  in  the  old 
Platform,  and  by  some  of  the  fathers  of  New  England, 
down  to  the  time  of  Cotton  Mather,  to  rid  their  churches 
of  the  title  of  Independency.  A  deference  to  the  preju- 
dices of  their  friends  in  Scotland,  and  to  an  old  odium 
connected  with  that  epithet  in  England  and  in  Holland, 
led  to  an  awkward  rejection  of  it  here.  We  are  aware, 
too,  that  a  show  of  relationship,  intercommunion,  re- 
sponsibility, and  right  of  advice  or  expostulation,  was 
set  up  as  impairing  the  Independency  of  our  churches. 
But  none  the  less  were  our  churches  Independent ;  if 
they  were  not,  the  ministers,  at  least,  were  Independent 
ministers.  They  were  not  the  subjects  of  a  Papacy,  a 
Prelacy,  or  a  Presbytery.  They  inherited  a  right  to  form 
their  own  faith  by  the  Bible,  and  in  the  Bible.  They  in- 
herited it  by  their  nature  and  from  their  lineage,  and 
from  their  Master.  They  were  not  amenable  to  any  ec- 
clesiastical tribunal,  nor  to  any  covenant,  except  as  in 
their  own  judgment  they  considered  that  tribunal  or 
covenant  as  conformed  to  Scripture.  They  were  not 
held  to  hang  their  minds  out,  like  thermometers,  on  their 
pulpits  or  door-posts,  to  indicate  the  degree  of  their  daily 
rise  or  fall  in  spiritual  heat.  They  were  free  to  yield 
every  day  and  every  hour  to  the  workings  of  thought, 
the  processes  of  study,  the  experimental  tests  and  trials 
of  opinion.  They  were  bound  to  receive  truth  as  it 
came  to  them,  and  to  declare  it  as  it  would  edify. 

Another  of  these  simple  historical  facts  to  be  had  in 
view  is,  that  no  one  generation  of  ministers  or  laymen 
made  the  whole  way  of  transition  from  Calvinism  to 
Unitarianism.  The  responsibility  of  announcing  the 
whole  result,  therefore,  did  not  lie  with  those  who  were 
responsible  for  effecting  but  one  stage  in  it.  There  is 
no  denying,  no  candid  student  of  our  history  can  pre- 


SUCCESSIVE  HERETICS  AND  HERESIES.  19 

sume  to  deny,  that,  for  a  whole  century  before  the  full 
development  of  Unitarianism,  there  had  been  a  large 
modification,  a  softening  and  toning  down  of  the  old 
theology,  an  undefined  but  recognized  tempering  of 
the  creed,  a  relaxing  of  the  strain  upon  faith,  and  a  com- 
pliant  acquiescence  in  that  state  of  things.  We  must,  in- 
deed, go  even  farther  back  than  the  preceding  century  to 
find  the  real  beginnings  of  that  free  spirit  which,  when 
reverently,  but  fearlessly  and  intelligently,  exercised  upon 
the  Scriptures,  introduced  Unitarianism.  Our  fathers 
brought  with  them  the  Bible,  to  be  interpreted  by  the 
principle  of  Protestantism.  Their  great  doctrine  was 
larger  than  their  own  minds,  and  they  had  to  grow  to  it. 
We,  their  children,  are  still  growing  to  it,  so  great  is  the 
doctrine,  so  full  of  developments,  so  sound  and  yet  so 
undefined  in  its  methods,  so  alarming  sometimes,  and 
yet  so  safe  always  in  its  issues.  All  that  troubled  and 
annoyed  those  noble  men,  all  that  they  did  wrong,  as  re- 
strainers  and  persecutors  of  free  opinion  in  its  successive 
developments,  is  to  be  traced  to  their  ignorance  of  the 
expansiveness,  their  dread  of  the  consequences,  of  their 
own  principle.  They  did  not  understand,  they  shrunk 
from  applying,  their  own  theory.  The  truth  is,  there 
never  wTas  a  perfect  accordance  in  doctrinal  opinion  even 
among  the  first  company  of  exiled  Christians.  The  col- 
league pastors  of  the  first  church  in  Boston  made  rival 
catechisms  for  the  babes  of  their  flock,  and  took  opposite 
sides  in  the  painful  strife  of  the  great  Antinomian  con- 
troversy. Those  men  and  women,  too,  were  all  inquirers, 
all  thinkers,  all  pupils.  They  felt  that  they  had  the  key 
to  truth,  but  they  were  all  their  lives  long  seeking  to  fit 
it  thoroughly  to  the  wards  of  that  golden  lock  which 
guards  its  mysteries.  An  unbroken  succession  of  here- 
tics, a  steady  succession  of  heresies,  are  recorded  on  the 
pages  of  our  history.  The  Browns  of  Salem  were 
shipped  back  to  England  almost  immediately  after  land- 


20  EARLY  HERESIES   IN  MASSACHUSETTS. 

ing.  The  Episcopalian  Maverick  of  East  Boston  was, 
in  1635,  forbidden  "  to  entertain  strangers,"  lest  they 
should  be  of  an  heretical  turn,  and  Blackstone  moved 
off  from  Boston  from  dislike  of  "  the  Lord's  brethren." 
Roger  Williams,  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  Samuel  Gorton, 
Antinomians,  Baptists,  and  Quakers,  were  successive 
trials  of  temper  and  of  Protestantism.  Independent 
thinkers,  sectaries,  dissentients  from  "  order,"  in  doctrine 
and  rule,  sprang  up  with  each  passing  year.  There  must 
also  have  been  much  smothered  thought,  and  unuttered 
dissent.  Did  not  the  good  gossips  and  staid  matrons, 
when,  in  the  safety  of  a  very  small  circle,  the  spinning- 
wheel  ceased  its  hum,  and  the  last  sermon  was  rehearsed, 
occasionally  try  their  honest  logic  upon  the  snarled  web 
of  their  theology  ?  Did  not  the  husbandmen  sometimes 
lean  upon  their  hoes,  or  rest  awhile  from  their  labors  in 
the  forest,  and  seat  themselves  upon  a  log,  to  discuss 
something  of  the  whole  problem  of  Calvinism? 

But  our  Orthodox  brethren  remonstrate,  if,  in  asserting 
what  we  have  just  intimated,  we  imply  that  there  were 
any  germs  or  foreshadowings  of  Unitarianism  in  the  la- 
tent or  acknowledged  ventures  of  free  thought  during 
the  first  century  of  our  history.  But  why  should  we  be 
forbidden  to  look  so  far  back  for  the  seeds  of  what  was 
afterwards  found  to  have  so  vigorous  a  growth  ?  Unita- 
rianism is  really  no  such  monstrous  conception,  no  such 
terrible  and  malignant  device  of  a  godless  heart  and  a 
perverted  mind,  as  some  of  its  dismayed  opponents  have 
represented  it  to  be.  If  they  only  understood  it,  as  it 
lies  in  the  serious  convictions  and  the  earnest  faith  of 
one  who  believes  with  all  his  heart  and  soul  and  mind 
that  it  is  the  true  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ, 
they  would  not  boast  of  having  so  keen  a  discrimination 
that  they  can  distinguish  it  by  a  mark  of  its  own  from 
all  other  heresies.  In  the  year  1650,  the  General  Court 
of  Massachusetts  Bay  "  convented "  before  it  Mr.  Wil- 


ECCLESIASTICAL   CONDITION   OF  CITIZENSHIP.  21 

liam  Pynchon,  the  distinguished  magistrate  of  Spring- 
field, on  account  of  some  "  false,  erroneous,  and  hereti- 
cal "  notions,  broached  by  him  in  a  volume  from  his  pen 
that  had  been  published  in  London.  His  heresies  re- 
lated to  the  method  of  atonement  through  the  death 
of  Christ,  and  he  showed  no  disposition  to  retract  all 
his  "  errors,"  though  "  the  elders "  conferred  with  him, 
and  the  Rev.  John  Norton  was  appointed  to  answer  his 
book.  A  little  more  than  a  century  afterwards,  the  Rev. 
John  Rogers  of  Leominster  came  under  suspicions  of 
"  unsoundness  in  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  original  sin 
and  the  Deity  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  and  was  driven 
from  his  office.  That,  between  the  dates  of  these  two 
official  proceedings  against  heresy,  the  distinctive  views 
of  Unitarianism  were  presenting  themselves  with  a  co- 
gent though  an  unwelcome  earnestness  to  several  minis- 
ters and  laymen,  we  have  no  more  doubt  than  we  have 
of  our  own  existence.  "  Moderate  Calvinism,"  a  very 
vague  term,  indeed,  but  all  the  more  significant  because 
of  its  vagueness,  was  the  convenient  shelter  of  the  early 
stages  of  our  heresy.  Strange  to  say,  this  term  never 
seems  to  have  been  a  bugbear  or  a  fright,  though  it  ex- 
presses the  agency  of  all  the  mischief.  A  very  slight 
glance  at  our  ecclesiastical  history  will  show  how  this 
stage  of  heresy  was  reached,  and  how  heresy  passed  on 
farther  upon  a  very  smooth  and  easy  road. 

By  a  law  enacted  in  this  colony  in  1631,  it  was  "  or- 
dered and  agreed  that  for  time  to  come  noe  man  shalbe 
admitted  to  the  freedome  of  this  body  polliticke,  but  such 
as  are  members  of  some  of  the  churches  within  the  lym- 
itts  of  the  same."  No  man,  therefore,  could  hold  any 
civil  office,  or  vote  in  civil  affairs,  except  he  were  a  com- 
municant. This  ecclesiastical  condition  of  citizenship 
had,  of  course,  two  most  injurious  and  harmful  conse- 
quences. Undesirable  members  united  themselves  to  a 
church  for  the  sake  of  securing  their  civil  rights   and 


22  THE  HALF-WAY   COVENANT. 

reaching  office.  Worthy  men  who  would  not  make  the 
required  profession,  even  for  the  sake  of  securing  their 
civil  rights,  were  rendered  hostile  to  the  prevailing  type 
of  religion.  Those  who  were  thus  disfranchised  in  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Plymouth  Colonies  petitioned  the  respec- 
tive Courts  for  relief,  in  1646,  and  afterwards  laid  their 
complaint  before  Parliament.  In  deference  to  an  inti- 
mation in  a  letter  from  the  king  of  England,  this  odious 
statute  was  repealed  in  1664 ;  but  even  in  the  substitute 
enacted,  "  a  cirtifficat  of  being  orthodox  in  religion," 
signed  by  the  minister,  was  necessary  to  qualify  a  citizen 
who  was  not  a  communicant.  The  relative  number  of 
church-members  had  begun  to  diminish,  with  the  in- 
crease of  the  population,  after  the  year  1650.  About  the 
time  of  the  repeal  of  the  statute  just  noticed,  a  meas- 
ure was  adopted  from  virtual  necessity  which  the  pros- 
pective emergencies  of  the  case  had  been  long  forebod- 
ing. As  the  children  of  church-members  only  were  con- 
sidered proper  subjects  of  baptism,  there  was  growing 
up  from  year  to  year  an  alarmingly  increasing  number  of 
"  heathen  infants,"  who,  of  course,  were  outside  of  the 
covenant.  A  remedy  was  sought  in  a  half-way  measure, 
—  half  demand,  half  concession,  —  called  in  modern 
times  a  compromise.  Parents  who  had  themselves  been 
baptized,  "  if  not  scandalous  in  their  lives,"  though  still 
unfit  for  the  Lord's  Supper,  were  by  this  measure  per- 
mitted, on  owning  the  covenant  which  their  parents  had 
made  for  them,  to  secure  baptism  for  their  children.  As 
a  matter  of  course,  again,  the  relative  proportion  of  com- 
municants continued  to  diminish  all  the  more.  Then 
came  another  relaxing  change.  The  Rev.  Solomon 
Stoddard  of  Northampton,  who  lacked  but  little  of  be- 
ing the  pope  of  his  county,  as  he  was  of  his  town,  so 
great  was  his  influence  and  so  fully  did  he  exercise  it, 
was  the  mover  in  this  alarming  innovation.  He  advo- 
cated, with  wonderful  success  over  the  country,  the  the- 


MODERATE   CALVINISM  AND   ARMINIANISM.  23 

ory  that  the  Lord's  Supper  is  among  the  appointed 
means  of  regeneration ;  that  persons  who  regard  them- 
selves as  unconverted  are  bound  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  aid  and  benefit  of  the  rite ;  and  that  a  profession  of 
piety  ought  not  to  be  required  of  those  who  with  that 
intent  should  offer  themselves  for  communion.  His 
theory  was  widely  put  into  practice,  and  the  avidity 
with  which  it  was  seized  upon  is  one  of  those  signifi- 
cant intimations  of  latent  discontent  with  the  prevailing 
usage,  which  reveals  more  of  the  workings  of  heresy 
than  some  dim  eyes  are  willing  to  recognize.  By  that 
innovation  not  only  did  church-members  come  into 
communion,  but  ministers  also  acceded  to  pulpits,  with- 
out reaching  in  spiritual  stature  the  high  mark  of  Cal- 
vinism. These  certainly  were  not  guilty  of  hypocrisy  in 
gradually  yielding  to  liberal  tendencies.  They  came  in 
through  a  door  which  the  spiritual  watchmen  had  left 
open. 

President  Edwards  dates  in  1734  the  beginning  "  of 
the  great  noise  in  this  part  of  the  country  about  Ar- 
minianism,"  another  of  those  vague  terms  of  which  we 
may  truly  say,  that  not  one  person  out  of  each  ten  who 
used  it  knew  the  real  meaning  or  the  scope.  This  term 
was  a  real  bugbear  to  the  timid ;  and  if  they  had  known 
how  much  of  unnamed  and  unlabelled  heresy  it  signi- 
fied, they  would  have  dreaded  it  more  than  they  did.  It 
covered  an  indefinite  amount  of  disloyalty  to  Calvinism. 
Whitefield's  first  visit  to  New  England,  in  1740,  with  his 
full  record  of  experiences  among  friends  and  opponents, 
furnishes  abundant  proof  that  all  the  elements  of  Uni- 
tarianism  were  then  at  work  here.  The  imported  writ- 
ings of  Samuel  Clarke  and  Thomas  Emlyn  probably 
favored  the  first  direct  Anti- Trinitarian  speculations  in 
this  neighborhood.  President  Edwards  wrote  his  work 
on  the  Freedom  of  the  "Will,  in  opposition  to  the  heresies 
of  Whitby,  and  his  work  on  Original  Sin,  in  opposition 


24  UNITARIANS   LAY  AND   CLERICAL. 

to  those  of  Taylor.  President  John  Adams  affirmed  that 
in  1750  his  own  minister,  Rev.  Lemuel  Bryant,  Dr. 
Jonathan  Mayhew  of  Boston,  Shute  and  Gay  of  Hing- 
ham,  and  Brown  of  Cohasset,  were  Unitarians.  The 
famous  Dr.  Hopkins  published,  in  1768,  a  sermon  on 
Hebrews  iii.  1,  upon  "  The  Importance  and  Necessity  of 
Christians  considering  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Extent  of  his 
high  and  glorious  Character."  The  author  says  that  he 
wrote  the  sermon  "  with  a  design  to  preach  it  in  Boston, 
under  a  conviction  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Divinity  of 
Christ  was  much  neglected,  if  not  disbelieved,  by  a 
number  of  the  ministers  of  Boston."  Nor  were  ministers 
the  only  heretics.  President  Adams  adds  to  his  statement 
just  given:  u  Among  the  laity  how  many  could  I  name, 
lawTyers,  physicians,  tradesmen,  and  farmers.  I  could  fill 
a  sheet,"  &c.  The  "confiding  people,"  among  whom 
the  Unitarians  are  charged  with  having  secretly  fostered 
their  views,  appear  in  some  measure  to  have  anticipated 
their  teachers.  Indeed,  it  is  altogether  probable  that 
some  societies,  instead  of  having  had  their  faith  slowly 
undermined  by  an  heretical  minister,  had,  even  under  the 
teachings  of  sound  Orthodoxy,  liberalized  their  own  opin- 
ions, and,  after  waiting  patiently  for  a  superannuated 
pastor  with  whom  they  did  not  accord  to  subside,  had 
intelligently  selected  a  successor  with  a  view  to  his 
growth  in  an  expanded  creed.  As  this  successor  at  his 
ordination  resolutely  refused  to  be  catechized  doctrinally, 
and  as  his  church  and  council  sustained  him  in  his  pre- 
rogative, the  way  was  free  to  him,  from  the  vague  terms 
of  opinion  on  speculative  points  under  which  he  had 
been  educated,  to  real  Unitarianism  as  the  result  of  his 
own  mature  thought.  Still,  he  might  not  know  his 
opinions  by  that  name,  or  the  associations  and  adjuncts 
of  that  epithet  might  make  him  unwilling  to  assume  it, 
as  many  to  whom  it  really  applies  are  unwilling  to 
assume  it  now.     But  to  visit  upon  the  ministers  at  that 


DOCTRINAL    AND    PRACTICAL  PREACHING.  25 

crisis  the  whole  odium  of  the  progressive  heresy  of  three 
generations,  and  then  to  seek  to  increase  that  odium  by 
aggravating  the  prejudice  connected  with  an  ill-sounding 
epithet,  was  neither  just  nor  kind. 

Still  another  of  those  simple  facts  which  a  candid 
mind  would  find  or  use  to  relieve  a  class  of  honored 
men  from  the  charge  of  an  insidious  inculcation  and  a 
wicked  concealment  of  their  opinions,  now  forces  itself 
upon  our  notice.  It  was  from  the  first,  and  always  has 
been,  an  element  of  that  general  view  of  Christianity, 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  Unitarianism,  that  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Gospel  and  the  materials  for  effective 
preaching  are  not  found  in  the  speculative  points  of 
theology,  —  the  doctrines  that  were  modified  by  the 
change  of  creeds.  As  this  is  one  of  the  most  character- 
istic and  vital  of  the  principles  of  Liberal  Christianity,  its 
disciples  had  a  right  to  regard  it  and  to  act  by  it.  The 
Orthodox  party  could  not  fairly  hold  them  bound  to 
throw  contempt  on  their  own  most  prominent  principle 
by  direct  controversial  preaching.  The  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  parties,  as  drawn  by  the  stress  laid  by  one 
of  them  and  the  disparagement  cast  by  the  other  upon 
the  importance  of  a  class  of  doctrines,  is  a  most  fun- 
damental distinction  between  them.  If  one  who  had 
entered  the  ministry  as  a  Unitarian  should  become  a 
decided  Calvinist,  the  peculiar  cast  of  his  new  views 
would  more  than  modify,  it  would  wholly  alter,  the  tone 
and  style  of  his  preaching.  But  a  minister  who  had 
begun  his  official  course  as  a  "moderate  Calvinist"  might 
gradually  become  a  Unitarian,  and  the  only  indication 
of  the  change  that  would  appear  in  his  preaching  might 
be  that  it  was  less  doctrinal  and  more  practical,  in  the 
technical  sense  of  those  words.  Within  the  knowledge 
of  most  of  us,  of  mature  observation,  are  examples  of  Or- 
thodox preachers  who  indicate  their  heretical  liberality, 
not  by  asserting  Unitarian  views,  but  by  their  silence 
3 


26  PRACTICAL  INFLUENCE   OF  CALVINISM. 

upon  the  offensive  peculiarities  of  Calvinism.  Those 
wavering  men  of  whom  we  are  speaking  had  many 
secret  struggles  in  their  own  privacy.  The  papers  of 
several  of  them,  examined  after  their  death,  have  revealed 
how  the  writers  went  through  the  Bible  to  select  and 
balance  texts  bearing  upon  disputed  points.  There  are 
many  affecting  evidences  of  the  reluctance  with  which 
they  yielded  to  convictions  pressing  for  recognition,  as 
well  as  of  the  reluctance  with  which  they  yielded  up 
tenets  stamped  with  the  authority  of  prescription,  and 
tenderly  associated  with  their  own  training  in  piety. 
That  such  men  did  not  seek  to  stir  a  strife  in  their  con- 
gregations, or  to  open  another  of  those  terrible  feuds  of 
faith  which  they  knew  to  be  so  prejudicial  to  true  religion, 
may  be  a  token  of  their  wisdom  or  a  sign  of  their  timid- 
ity, as  their  critics  shall  judge  them.  Still,  the  course 
which  they  pursued  is  not  only  consistent  with  sincerity, 
but  was  in  itself  one  of  the  most  essential  elements,  one 
of  the  most  significant  results,  of  the  change  through 
which  they  had  passed.  Attempts  were  indeed  made  by 
the  Orthodox  to  prove  that  the  doctrines  which  were 
renounced  were  of  an  eminently  practical  power.  We 
can  conceive  that,  if  some  of  the  doctrines  of  Calvinism 
were  believed  as  we  apply  the  word  belief  to  common 
facts  of  life,  they  would  have  a  tremendous  practical  in- 
fluence ;  as,  for  instance,  they  would  forbid  any  thorough 
disciple  of  them  to  become  a  parent,  and  would  fill  his 
heart  with  dreadful  anticipations  of  the  doom  of  some 
who  are  nearest  to  him.  We  can  conceive,  also,  that  if 
what  the  creed  teaches  of  the  fate  of  heathens  were  held 
with  an  intense  conviction,  the  poor  annual  pittance 
raised  by  all  Orthodox  Christians  for  their  relief,  and 
which  is  not  a  thousandth  part  of  the  sum  spent  upon 
their  luxuries  and  pleasures,  would  be  increased  a  hun- 
dred-fold. Indeed,  if  the  sincerity  of  the  statement  may 
relieve  its  apparent  want  of  kindness,  we  will  venture  to 


REVIVAL  OF   UNITARIANISM.  27 

say  that  the  practical  poiver  theoretically  attaching  to 
the  peculiarities  of  the  Calvinistic  creed  does  not  seem 
to  produce  its  practical  effects.  Charity,  therefore,  sug- 
gests, that  there  is  something  in  the  theory  itself  which 
averts  or  hinders  the  practical  consequences  that  might 
be  expected  to  result  from  it.  Its  believers  do  not  appear 
and  act,  as  we  should  feel  obliged  and  impelled  to  appear 
and  act,  if  we  believed  it.  "  Is  it  of  no  importance,"  asked 
one  who  was  arguing  against  us  on  this  point,  (Spirit  of 
the  Pilgrims,  IV.  359,)  "  whether  the  God  we  worship 
exists  in  three  persons  or  in  one  ?  "  We  answer,  there  is 
no  possible  way  in  which  a  man  can  make  a  Trinitarian 
belief  on  this  subject  appear  in  his  character  or  his  life. 
He  must  content  himself  with  such  a  display  of  it  as  he 
can  make  in  words, —  in  words,  too,  that  must  necessarily 
indicate  confused  and  vague  ideas.  The  truth  is,  that,  in 
the  most  heated  stage  of  the  controversy,  the  Unitarians 
were  considered  by  the  Orthodox  as  bound  to  renounce 
Christianity,  and  to  make  proclamation  that  they  had 
renounced  it.  This  the  Unitarians  had  no  intention  of 
doing.  Nor  were  they  swift  to  proclaim  specifically  and 
in  terms,  that  in  accepting  a  purer  Christianity  they  had 
renounced  former  corruptions.  For  in  doing  the  latter, 
they  would  be  subjected  by  zealots,  as  the  event  proved, 
to  the  imputation  of  having  done  the  former.  They 
preached  in  favor  of  what  they  believed,  rather  than 
against  what  they  rejected.  Their  concealment  was 
mainly  a  concealment  of  strife. 

In  connection  with  the  charge  of  artful  concealment, 
numerous  essays  were  written  by  the  Orthodox  in  the 
early  as  well  as  in  later  stages  of  the  controversy,  to 
account  for  the  origin  and  the  extensive  reception  of 
Unitarian  views.  Some  of  the  reasons  given  were  inge- 
nious, and  more  or  less  pertinent.  But  it  is  a  singular 
fact,  that  we  have  never  found  a  single  statement  on  the 
Orthodox  side  of  what  was  really  the  reason,  the  effect- 


28 


FAILURE   OF   ORTHODOXY. 


ive  and  sufficient  reason,  of  the  new  heresy,  —  the  reason 
which  any  intelligent  Unitarian  would  have  given  if 
questioned  by  an  Orthodox  friend.  The  reason  for  the 
adoption  and  prevalence  of  Unitarianism  was  simply 
and  solely  the  failure  of  Orthodoxy  to  satisfy  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  a  large  number  of  serious-minded  and 
religious  persons  in  this  community.  This  failure  was 
a  marked  fact.  Our  brethren  of  the  other  party  will 
never  treat  our  predecessors  justly,  to  say  nothing  of 
ourselves,  till  they  make  a  manly  and  a  candid  recogni- 
tion of  this  fact.  Their  controversy  properly  began 
among  themselves.  ^  The  poison  whose  alarming  intro- 
duction they  marvelled  and  mourned  over,  was  an  acrid 
humor  generated  by  disease  and  decay  in  their  own 
system.  Orthodoxy  failed  to  retain  the  confidence,  to 
feed  the  piety,  to  satisfy  the  hearts,  of  many  of  its  own 
disciples.  It  failed  to  stand  the  test  of  a  trial  by  the 
Scriptures,  instituted  with  a  bias  in  its  favor,  in  all 
sincerity,  earnestness,  and  ability,  by  competent  men. 
Orthodoxy,  to  the  dismay  and  regret  of  many  of  these 
anxious  inquirers,  was  discovered  to  be  unscriptural,  —  a 
human  scheme,  not  a  divine  system  of  doctrine.  We 
must  insult  all  the  usual  features  and  evidences  of  sin- 
cerity, if  we  do  not  allow  for  this  fact.  To  have  recourse 
to  other  explanations  of  the  revival  and  re-adoption  of 
Unitarian  views  among  Christians,  while  this  fact  is 
wholly  blinked,  is  disingenuous  in  the  extreme. 

Doubtless  the  new  sect  embraced  its  full  proportion  of 
the  superficial,  the  light-minded,  the  unregenerate,  and 
the  irreligious.  The  derogatory  way  in  which  its  lax 
and  tolerant  features  were  drawn  by  some  of  its  early 
enemies,  led  many  to  assume  the  name  who  were  wholly 
destitute  of  faith  and  piety.  But  the  new  sect  had  also 
its  men  and  women  of  sterling  excellence,  of  real  piety; 
cultivated,  thoughtful,  conscientious,  cautious  of  judg- 
ment, slow  of  decision,  but  firm  and  well  grounded  in 


REVIVAL   OP  UNITARIANISM.  29 

their  conclusions.  Multitudes  of  these  from  out  of  the 
very  bosom  of  Orthodox  churches,  admitted  to  have  been 
saints  while  within  their  covenants,  have  testified  to  the 
inexpressible  relief  which  they  found  in  Unitarian  views, 
and  to  the  deep  and  living  impulses  of  devotion  which 
they  derived  from  them,  after  having  faithfully,  but  in 
vain,  tried  to  live  in  Orthodoxy.  And  this  failure  of 
Orthodoxy  to  retain  its  own  domain,  and  to  keep  its 
own  disciples,  is  the  more  remarkable,  when  we  consider 
what  advantages  it  had  on  its  side.  The  whole  prestige 
of  existing  institutions,  forms,  order,  and  authority  was 
with  it.  Tradition,  historical  associations,  living  bonds 
of  love,  sacred  ties  to  the  departed,  household  affections, 
and  the  memories  of  early  religious  training,  were  with  it; 
but  all  were  insufficient  to  retain  an  allegiance  which 
had  been  discredited  by  the  failing  confidence  of  its  dis- 
ciples. If  no  other  solution  of  the  fact  can  be  found,  we 
must  conclude  that  God  has  so  constituted  some  who 
wish  to  love  him,  and  to  understand  his  Word,  and  to 
comply  with  its  demands,  and  to  share  its  promises,  that 
they  cannot,  while  they  are  sane  and  honest,  accept  the 
Calvinistic  scheme.  Calvinists  reason  as  if  they  were 
sure  that  the  Gospel  offers  no  alternative  between  their 
system  and  actual  infidelity,  —  as  if  there  were  no  other 
possible  form  of  the  Christian  faith  but  that  of  the  Gene- 
van.    But,  thank  God,  we  are  sure  that  they  are  wrong. 

If  it  be  asked  why  this  exposure  of  the  insufficiency 
and  the  unscriptural  character  of  Orthodoxy  was  de- 
ferred to  our  age  in  the  Christian  era,  we  must  content 
ourselves  with  dropping  two  suggestions  in  answer, — 
suggestions  that  might  be  dwelt  upon  at  some  length 
and  proved  satisfactory  in  meeting  the  case.  First,  for 
long  centuries  after  the  Augustine  theology  had  estab- 
lished its  sway,  as  a  corruption  of  the  simple  Unitarian- 
ism  of  the  primitive  Church,  attention  was  not  concen- 
trated upon  the  doctrinal  constitution  of  Christianity, 


30  THE  LINE   OF  UNITARIAN   BELIEVERS. 

but  was  withdrawn  to  other  aspects  of  it.  Rome  had 
exalted  the  hierarchical  element  and  the  extra- Scriptural 
element  of  tradition.  The  Reformers  were  chiefly  en- 
gaged upon  strictly  ecclesiastical  issues ;  they  assailed 
the  Pope,  the  Church,  with  its  councils,  its  inventions,  its 
tyrannies,  and  its  corruptions.  The  English  Puritans 
were  brought  into  hostility  with  the  sacerdotalism  and 
the  ritualism  of  Episcopacy.  Independency  both  here 
and  in  England  first  brought  the  Gospel  to  a  simple  but 
severe  trial  by  textual  criticism  of  its  doctrinal  system. 
From  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  this  searching  test 
had  not  been  applied  to  it  by  this  method.  The  second 
suggestion,  bearing  on  the  question  just  asked,  reminds 
us  of  a  fact  very  familiar  to  all  Christian  scholars,  that 
Unitariahism  has  lain  latent  in  all  the  ages  of  the 
Church  ;  there  have  always  been  intimations  of  its  pres- 
ence and  of  its  secret  workings ;  it  has  cropped  out 
here  and  there  always.  The  names  of  an  unbroken  line 
of  men  linking  together  like  a  chain  may  be  selected 
even  from  our  scanty  records,  whose  sympathies  might 
be  claimed  for  what  is  called  Liberal  Christianity.  They 
are  the  names  of  men  in  Poland,  Italy,  Switzerland, 
Holland,  Austria,  Germany,  France,  and  England,  —  men 
whose  characters  and  attainments  will  bear  a  favorable 
comparison  with  those  of  any  class  associated  by  doc- 
trinal belief  or  Christian  sympathy.  Unitarianism  had  its 
martyrs  before  the  discovery  and  the  colonization  of  these 
parts  of  the  world.  Its  main  and  strong  position  in  convic- 
tion and  argument  always  has  been,  not  that  it  is  simply 
a  rational  faith,  but  that  it  is  the  express,  the  positive,  the 
literal  exhibition  of  the  doctrines  taught  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. Indeed,  there  are,  to  our  minds,  no  more  signif- 
icant or  recommendatory  features  about  Unitarianism, 
than  are  found  in  the  occasions  and  the  manner  of  its 
presence,  and  in  the  class  of  men  who  have  embraced  it, 
and  in  the  method  of  its  advocacy  by  them  through 


UNITARIAN  INTOLERANCE.  31 

all  the  ages  of  Christian  history.  It  would  require  a 
subsidiary  revelation  to  convince  us  that  Jesus  and  his 
Apostles  ever  taught  Calvinism.  We  can  easily  trace 
the  incomings  and  the  progress  of  Orthodoxy,  and  we 
know  that  it  has  been  dissented  from  and  protested 
against,  under  just  such  circumstances,  and  by  just  such 
men,  and  for  just  such  reasons,  and  in  just  such  ways,  as 
accord  with  all  the  harmonies  of  history  and  reason. 

Our  sympathy  does  not  go  wholly  with  all  of  those 
who  on  our  side  carried  on  this  controversy  when  it 
waxed  fiercest.  Positions  were  assumed  which  could 
not  be  sustained.  Measures  were  adopted  which  we 
will  not  justify.  Pamphlets  were  written  which  reflect 
shame  on  their  authors,  and  to  some  extent  on  their 
cause.  Leaving  to  candid  reviewers  on  the  Orthodox 
side  to  visit  such  censures  upon  the  proceedings  and  the 
spirit  of  their  own  party  as  they  may  see  reason  to  utter, 
we  will  not  assume  their  office  for  them,  but  will  pass 
our  judgments  only  on  our  side.  For  ourselves  we  do 
not  accord  with  much  of  the  incidental  argument  used 
on  our  side  of  the  controversy,  and  we  regret  the  un- 
christian, the  unfraternal  spirit  of  the  strife.  We  would 
not  undertake  to  defend  all  those  views  of  Scripture,  nor 
all  those  assertions  or  negations  of  doctrine,  advanced 
even  by  some  leading  Unitarians.  We  do  not  feel  per- 
fectly satisfied  with  the  legal  decisions  in  two  cases  bear- 
ing upon  the  ownership  of  church  property,  though  we 
admit  that  the  issue  raised  was  quite  a  perplexing  one. 

One  who  candidly  reviews  this  controversy,  even  with 
his  prejudices  and  convictions  strongly  on  the  liberal 
side  of  it,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  seem- 
ing coolness,  we  might  almost  say  the  nonchalance,  or 
the  superciliousness  and  effrontery  even,  with  which 
some  Unitarians  took  for  granted  that  the  great  change 
in  religious  opinions  and  methods  advocated  by  them 
could  perfect  and  establish  itself  in  this  community  as  a 


32  CONTROVERSIAL  ARROGANCE. 

matter  of  course.  Some  Unitarians  wrote  and  talked  as 
if  in  utter  amazement  that  Orthodoxy  should  presume  to 
say  a  word  for  itself  in  arrest  of  judgment,  or  as  a  plea 
for  continued  right  of  possession  where  it  had  lived  and 
ruled  so  long.  The  most  assured  and  confident  and  in- 
tolerant of  the  new  party  did  not  scruple  to  declare  that 
Orthodoxy  was  past  apologizing  for,  and  ought  to  retire 
as  gracefully  as  possible,  with  the  bats  and  owls.  It  was 
only  after  some  considerable  surprise  and  mortification, 
that  such  supercilious  disputants  were  induced  to  enter- 
tain a  reconsideration  of  the  whole  issue,  as  the  adherents 
to  the  old  system  rallied  to  its  defence,  and,  in  the  lack 
of  sufficient  champions  here,  imported  a  Philistine  giant 
from  Connecticut.  Other  Unitarians,  who  did  not  fully 
yield  themselves  to  the  conceit  of  an  easy  and  unchal- 
lenged victory,  were  more  or  less  alive  to  the  fact  that 
there  must  at  least  be  death-struggles  on  the  part  of 
Orthodoxy,  even  if  more  formidable  manifestations  did 
not  give  proof  of  its  tenacity  of  life  and  of  its  unabated 
vigor.  These  more  considerate  judges  of  the  strength 
and  the  alliances  of  long-established  views,  were  secured 
from  those  exhibitions  of  arrogance  and  unconcern  which 
were  especially  galling  to  the  serious-minded  among  the 
Orthodox.  This  spirit  of  contempt  to  which  we  have 
referred  would  have  alleged,  in  its  justification,  the  prevail- 
ing indifference,  the  lethargy,  the  disgust,  that  attached 
to  Orthodoxy  in  this  community.  It  would  have  plead- 
ed, that  what  so  many  had  outgrown,  and  discredited, 
and  despised,  and  what  others  still  believed  was  spread- 
ing an  alarming  amount  of  infidelity  over  the  land, 
deserved  no  courtesy  or  forbearance  of  treatment.  The 
coarseness  and  virulence  and  dogmatism  of  some  of  the 
Orthodox  champions  would  doubtless  be  made,  indeed 
they  were  made,  the  justification  of  some  of  our  own 
partisans  whom  we  cannot  honor.  The  petty  and  vexa- 
tious artifices,  the  gnats  and  wasps  of  controversy,  evi- 


IRRITATIONS   OP  CONTROVERSY.  33 

dently  were  very  provocative  of  ill  passions  among  the 
Unitarians.  The  arrogant  denial  to  them  of  the  Christian 
name  ;  the  attempt  to  confound  them  by  putting  quota- 
tions from  their  writings  into  parallelisms  from  the  writ- 
ings of  Tom  Paine ;  the  mean  effort  to  foreclose  the 
issue  by  a  monopolizing  of  the  epithet  Evangelical^  and 
by  a  constant  use  of  the  phrase  "the  peculiar  doctrines 
of  the  Gospel,"  as  if  by  simply  insisting  upon  their 
identity  with  Calvinistic  doctrines  the  question  might  be 
decided  by  being  begged ;  —  these  offences,  together 
with  sundry  shocking  perversions  of  Scripture,  as  in  the 
wicked  application  to  Unitarians,  for  denying  the  Mes- 
siah to  be  God,  of  those  words  of  Peter  which  refer  to 
the  faithless  deceivers  of  the  first  age,  "denying  the  Lord 
that  bought  them,"  —  these  offences  were  strong  prov- 
ocations to  some  of  our  predecessors.  One  of  our  own 
editors  was  moved  to  write  the  remonstrating  words : 
"  Let  our  characters  be  spared.  We  are  not  infidels. 
We  are  Christians,  with  the  most  sincere  conviction  of 
the  truth  of  our  religion,  and  with  a  deep  sense  of  its 
inestimable  value.  We  do  not  deny  the  Lord  who 
bought  us,"  &c  * 

These  irritating  and  odious  strokes  of  bigotry,  which 
were  not  intended  for  argument,  but  as  evasions  and 
substitutes  for  it,  addressed  to  prejudice  and  designed  to 
foreclose  an  issue  that  should  have  been  calmly  and 
seriously  debated,  excited  much  acrimony.  We  can 
estimate  the  force  which  these  aggravations  then  had  by 
the  occasional  recourse  which  is  even  now  made  to  the 
same  unworthy  arts  to  help  in  giving  Unitarianism  a 
bad  name.  That  some  of  its  early  advocates  should 
have  been  put  out  of  temper  by  this  ill  usage  is  but 
natural.  Still,  candor  compels  us  to  say  that  some  prom- 
inent advocates   of  Unitarianism  conceived  too  lightly 

*  Christian  Disciple,  for  1819,  p.  139. 


34        UNITARIAN  AND  ORTHODOX  METHOD. 

of  the  resistance  they  might  expect  to  meet,  and  were 
not  sufficiently  aware  of  the  revolutionary  character  of 
their  own  views.  For  Unitarianism  did  in  fact  involve 
a  radical  change  of  opinion  and  practice  as  to  the  true 
theory  of  the  Gospel  and  the  method  of  its  dispensation. 
Only  as  one  carefully  and  in  detail  compares  the  views, 
the  usages,  the  tone,  and  the  measures  connected  with 
religious  offices  by  the  two  now  existing  parties  among 
the  Congregationalists,  will  he  really  appreciate  the  mat- 
ter and  the  amount  of  this  change.  Orthodoxy  is  more 
intense,  systematic,  and  pointed  in  its  whole  substance 
and  in  all  its  methods,  than  is  Unitarianism,  when  under 
their  respective  organizations  they  represent  types  of 
religious  belief  or  modes  of  religious  action.  Ortho- 
doxy has  sharp,  well-defined,  elaborate,  and  systematic 
standards  for  its  disciples.  Unitarianism  is  loose,  vague, 
general,  indeterminate  in  its  elements  and  formularies. 
Orthodoxy  commits  the  charge  and  the  direction  of  its 
institutions  to  those  pledged  believers  who,  as  commu- 
nicants, constitute  the  avowed  and  available  strength  of 
its  doctrinal  fellowship.  Unitarianism,  conceiving  that 
in  a  nominally  Christian  community  all  its  respectable 
members  may  be  considered  as  in  a  degree  influenced 
by  Christian  convictions  and  purposes,  extends  its  trusts 
and  responsibilities  through  a  whole  religious  society  or 
congregation.  Orthodoxy  makes  account  of  crises  and 
temporary  devices  and  periodical  excitements.  Unita- 
rianism wishes  to  avoid  all  schemes  and  spasmodic 
action.  Orthodoxy  bands  its  disciples,  assesses  them, 
sets  them  at  work,  appoints  committees  to  inquire 
after  new-comers,  in  many  places  confines  its  patronage 
within  its  own  communion,  is  apt  to  know  "  the  faith  " 
of  applicants  for  schools,  and  will  not  always  divide  its 
sympathies  and  honors  among  those  from  whom  it  asks 
money  and  other  aid.  Unitarianism  dislikes  such  agen- 
cies and  intrigues.    Orthodoxy  is  sacrificial.     Unitarian- 


THE  ORTHODOX  TYPE  OF  CHARACTER.        35 

ism  is  moral.  The  intensity  which  characterizes  the  Or- 
thodox system,  and  the  laxity  which  is  manifest  in  the 
Unitarian  system,  might  be  traced  in  all  their  respective 
doctrines  and  methods.  The  difference,  though  in  some 
points  trifling  and  hardly  distinguishable,  appears  in 
others  to  be  of  exceeding  importance.  It  could  hardly 
be  possible,  therefore,  for  the  milder  system  to  displace 
the  more  rigid  system  in  any  community,  without  the 
visible  tokens  of  a  revolution.  If  the  processes  and  re- 
sults of  this  change  should  be  followed  up  through  its 
effects  on  feelings,  habits,  prejudices,  interests,  and  cher- 
ished convictions,  it  will  at  once  appear  that  it  must 
have  been  burdened  with  dislikes  and  pointed  with 
pains  for  many  excellent  persons.  This  fact,  we  say, 
some  of  the  Unitarians  made  too  light  of.  They  did  not 
estimate  it  and  allow  for  it  as  they  ought  to  have  done. 
They  did  not  try  to  soften,  soothe,  or  conciliate  the  suf- 
ferings which  it  involved,  and  the  opposition  which  it 
aroused.  Some  Unitarians  did  not  treat,  as  became 
Christians,  with  respectful  tenderness  and  with  filial  rev- 
erence, the  faith  and  convictions  which  had  been  rooted 
in  the  hearts  and  honored  in  the  churches  of  New  Eng- 
land. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  disguised  that  the  type  of  character 
formed  by  unrelieved  and  unqualified  Orthodoxy,  when 
it  intensified  its  peculiarities,  was  not  attractive  to  a 
Unitarian.  Puritanism  always  was  an  uncomfortable 
neighbor  to  all  who  were  not  Puritans.  We  can  admire 
and  respect,  almost  to  the  border  of  a  reverential  hom- 
age, the  heroic  virtues,  the  dauntless  spirit,  and  the  en- 
thralling soul  of  piety  in  our  orthodox  ancestry.  But 
we  feel  that  they  need  some  set-off  or  concomitant  from 
persecution,  exile,  or  romance,  some  hill-side  lurkings, 
some  ocean  risks,  some  wilderness  trials,  some  prison 
straits,  to  fix  our  attention  upon  the  severities  of  their 
lot  that  it  may  be  withdrawn  from  the  severities  of  their 


36  THE  DECAY   OF  PURITANISM. 

creed.  We  love  Puritanism  while  it  is  in  its  process  of 
purification  by  fire,  prison,  or  banishment,  and  the  sharp- 
er its  pains,  the  softer  and  sweeter  is  its  spirit.  Nor  can 
it  be  gainsaid  that  the  Puritan  creed  needs  such  methods 
to  secure  disciples,  to  make  them  genial  and  of  high  soul 
while  they  live,  and  the  subjects  of  an  admiring  rever- 
ence when  they  enter  into  stories  of  the  past.  All  Puri- 
tanical persons  ought  to  be  pioneers  and  missionaries, 
and  the  more  remote  their  sphere,  and  the  harder  their 
work,  the  worthier  they  would  be,  and  the  better  we 
should  like  them.  But  living  Puritans  in  prosperous, 
quiet  times,  are  something  different.  When,  after  the 
softening  influences  of  a  quiet  course  of  life,  the  strain 
of  early  zeal  was  relaxed,  and  the  tenets  of  a  severe 
creed  were  keenly  examined,  then  it  was  manifest  that 
there  were  Christian  men  and  women  here  who  could 
no  longer  come  up  to  the  rigid  standard  of  the  old  piety. 
The  fact  presented  itself  in  many  little  signs  and  tokens, 
as  well  as  in  some  very  serious  exhibitions  of  a  modify- 
ing influence  that  had  long  been  at  work  in  this  com- 
munity. When  the  effects  of  this  change  were  brought 
together  and  commented  upon,  they  admitted  of  being 
very  easily  exaggerated  and  misrepresented,  as  well  as 
of  being  very  severely  censured  by  those  who  wished  to 
retain  the  old  forms  and  methods.  The  tone  and  phrase- 
ology of  public  prayers  were  changed.  The  old  custom 
of  supplicating  the  Deity  in  specific  and  almost  dictato- 
rial terms  for  the  sick,  the  convalescent,  the  afflicted,  and 
those  going  on  journeys,  was  greatly  modified.  Chil- 
dren ceased  to  be  taken  directly  from  the  womb  into  the 
meeting-house  for  baptism,  and  parents  began  to  shrink 
from  a  public  return  of  their  thanks  for  such  blessings, 
and  a  public  supplication  for  more.  The  style  of  ser- 
mon-writing yielded  to  the  weariness  which  impugned 
the  old  fashion,  —  of  turning  over  the  leaves  of  the  Bible 
from  beginning  to  end  in  what  was  little  more  than  a  cull- 


AN  ASSUMING   PIETISM.  37 

ing  of  texts,  —  and  brought  in  the  modern  fashion  of  writ- 
ing after  the  manner  of  an  essay  on  a  Scripture  or  relig- 
ious theme.  The  mode  of  keeping  Sunday  was  relaxed. 
Extra  meetings  and  evening  lectures,  which  old  persons 
in  both  parties  equally  objected  to,  were  adopted  first  by 
the  Orthodox,  and  then,  after  fruitless  complaint,  by  the 
Unitarians.  The  custom  of  making  a  severe  inquisition 
into  the  religious  experience  of  candidates  for  the  com- 
munion was  set  aside.  Church  discipline  for  heresy  and 
private  sin  was  less  frequent.  Some  discriminations  were 
adopted  in  the  way  of  using  and  quoting  from  the  Bible, 
—  discriminations  which  honest  criticism  and  common 
sense  proved  to  be  necessary,  and  yet  perfectly  consist- 
ent to  a  reasonable  mind  with  the  highest  practical 
value  assigned  to  the  Bible  as  a  whole.  Here  then  were 
various  tests  and  tokens  for  the  designation  of  two  par- 
ties among  the  Congregationalists.  The  one  party  was 
called  Liberal.  The  other  party  remained  rigid,  and 
seemed  to  try  to  become  more  rigid,  by  clinging  to  the 
shadows  of  things  whose  substance  had  passed  away, 
and  by  assuming  the  championship  of  a  form  of  piety 
which  belonged  to  another  age,  and  to  quite  another 
class  of  characters.  Now  it  was  the  assumption  of  this 
type  of  piety  by  those  whom  it  did  not  become,  simply 
because  it  was  not  theirs,  which  was  very  unattractive, 
not  to  say  exceedingly  repulsive,  to  Unitarians.  It  had 
lost  all  its  living  characteristics,  its  realities  as  embodied 
in  the  style  of  thought,  demeanor,  conviction,  and  life, 
and  was  driven  to  make  its  manifestation  in  words 
alone, — in  what  was  said  and  written.  To  have  their 
neighbors,  who  in  real  character  and  course  of  life  showed 
no  grace  above  others,  who  were  just  as  devoted  to  thrift 
and  prosperity,  just  as  eager  for  good  bargains,  just  as 
worldly  and  faulty,  just  as  censorious  and  imperfect,  yet 
professing  to  be  "  saints  by  calling,"  successors  to  stem 
old  Puritans,  heirs  of  the  covenant,  and  sealed  by  God's 
4 


38  THE   TESTS   OF   CHARACTER  AND   LIFE. 

spirit  for  a  life  of  eternal  bliss,  because  they  held  the 
five  sharp  points  of  an  old  creed  of  man's  devising,  and 
had  passed  through  some  mysterious  inward  change,  in 
proof  of  which  they  could  give  nothing  but  their  own 
assertions,  —  this  experience,  we  say,  was  not  of  a  sort 
to  make  the  advocates  of  Orthodoxy  very  amiable  in  the 
eyes  of  Unitarians.  When  two  parties  who,  as  far  as 
the  eye  of  man  can  see  or  know,  stand  upon  the  same 
level  of  piety,  intelligence,  earnestness,  and  sincerity  of 
purpose,  are  seeking  to  decide  between  them  questions 
of  Scripture  truth,  if  the  one  party  assume  to  itself  the 
title  of  "the  friends  of  Christ,"  it  can  hardly  be  sup- 
posed that  the  other  party  will  accept  very  graciously 
the  title  which  by  construction  is  assigned  to  them  of 
"  the  enemies  of  Christ."  Nor  did  it  tend  to  concil- 
iate matters  that  the  Orthodox  freely  wrote  and  spoke  of 
the  Unitarians  as  "the  worldly  party,"  the  patrons  of 
the  theatre,  the  lovers  of  balls,  festivities,  dress,  amuse- 
ments, and  other  gayeties.  Good  sense,  however,  and 
"that  common  human  nature,"  which  has  been  found  to 
attach  to  human  beings  independently  of  their  creed, 
soon  settled  these  not  very  dignified  elements  of  the 
controversy.  It  has  been  made  to  appear  that  what  is 
called  "  worldliness "  of  this  sort  is  rather  a  token  of 
one's  social  position,  pecuniary  means,  and  private  tastes, 
than  of  his  religious  character.  Certainly,  in  this  com- 
munity, at  least,  it  would  be  difficult  to  establish  a  su- 
periority in  any  Christian  grace  or  excellence  as  having 
attached  peculiarly  to  those  who  have  opposed  Unita- 
rianism.  Sensible  persons  of  both  parties  have  accord- 
ed in  the  conclusion,  that  the  grave  questions  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine  which  are  at  issue  between  them  are  not 
to  be  settled  by  calling  hard  names. 

Turning  from  this  survey  of  the  past,  we  attempt  to 
sum  up  its  results  as  in  our  own  judgment  they  bear 
upon  the  present  relations  of  parties.     Endeavoring  to 


LACK   OF  ZEAL   IN  UNITARIANISM.  39 

exercise  that  degree  of  candor  and  impartiality  of  which 
we  may  be  supposed  to  be  capable  while  our  sympathies 
favor  one  of  these  parties,  we  will  venture  to  express 
plainly  what  we  really  think.  Unitarianism  has  rela- 
tively failed  in  comparison  with  Orthodoxy  at  one  point 
which  should  be  paramount  wTith  a  truly  Christian  de- 
nomination ;  and  Unitarianism  has  met  with  eminent 
success,  and  has  secured  a  triumph  significant  of  further 
results,  in  a  direction  in  which  it  has  spent  the  strength 
of  many  earnest  efforts. 

Unitarianism  has  proved  itself  inferior  to  Orthodoxy 
as  a  working  power,  a  method  of  presenting  and  apply- 
ing the  Gospel  so  as  to  engage  the  enthusiasm,  the  zeal, 
the  hearty,  devoted  service  of  its  disciples  in  devising 
eminently  Christian  schemes,  and  in  carrying  on  great 
religious  enterprises.  The  "  coldness  "  with  which  the 
Orthodox  have  charged  us  we  have  felt,  and  instead  of 
denying  a  plain,  manifest  truth,  we  prefer  the  grace 
of  frankly  acknowledging  it.  We  cannot  gather  our 
strength  and  bring  it  to  bear  effectually  in  a  great  relig- 
ious movement.  Opportunities  have  slipped  through  our 
hands.  Interests  which  we  might  have  strengthened  we 
have  sacrificed.  We  have  sustained  many  noble  benev- 
olent agencies,  but  the  element  which  has  been  lacking 
to  their  cheerful,  vigorous,  and  most  Christian  efficacy, 
is  the  very  element  which  our  views  in  their  working 
processes  have  not  yet  developed.  We  do  not  connect 
the  fountain-head  of  all  evangelical  power  and  motive 
and  impulse  with  a  hundred  little  ramifying  conduits  to 
bear  it  among  the  different  classes  of  the  community,  as 
do  our  Orthodox  brethren.  We  do  not  distinguish  be- 
tween the  means  necessary  to  foster  piety  in  the  home, 
the  school,  the  literary  and  benevolent  association,  the 
church,  and  the  congregation.  The  differences  of  opin- 
ion and  the  alienations  of  sympathy  which  exist  among 
the   Orthodox  are  smothered  up  when  they  make  any 


7 


40  WORKING   OP  UNITARIANISM. 

public  anniversary  exhibition  of  their  sectarian  or  Chris- 
tian purposes  ;  but  with  us,  such  differences  and  aliena- 
tions form  the  very  staple  of  debate  at  our  conventions, 
and  make  up  the  report  of  our  "doings"  published  to 
the  world.  If  any  two  of  us  walking  arm  in  arm  on  one 
side  of  a  street  should  find  that  we  perfectly  accorded  in 
opinion,  we  should  feel  bound  to  separate  instantly,  and 
the  strife  would  be  as  to  which  should  get  the  start  in 
crossing;  and  this  is  true  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there 
is  more  real  harmony,  fraternal  feeling,  and  mutual  re- 
gard between  our  brethren,  with  all  their  amazing  in- 
dividualism, than  among  the  ministers  of  any  other  sect 
in  Christendom.  Yet  we  cannot  bring  our  forces  to 
bear  as  do  the  Orthodox  in  combined  zeal  and  earnest- 
ness of  purpose.  We  have  no  pass-words,  we  have  no 
connecting  wires,  no  electricity  to  traverse  them  if  we 
had  them.  It  may  be  said  that  this  confession  only  ad- 
mits our  failure  in  comparison  with  Orthodoxy  at  the 
very  point  in  which  Protestantism  fails  in  comparison 
with  Romanism,  which  leagues  its  forces  and  displays  a 
working  power  in  methods  and  ramifications  of  energy 
of  a  kind  to  amaze  us  all.  This  plea,  however,  will  not 
cover  more  than  about  half  of  our  relative  lack,  and  will 
still  leave  a  balance  against  us  in  reckoning  for  our  com- 
parative inefficiency,  in  the  use  of  what  we  allege  are 
more  legitimate  and  more  consistent  Christian  weapons, 
against  worldliness  and  sin  and  impiety  and  coldness 
of  heart.  Unitarianism  has  certainly  exhibited  some 
marked  deficiency,  either  of  power,  or  of  skill,  or  of  in- 
genuity, or  of  enthusiasm.  For  ourselves,  we  should  not 
admit  this  to  be  an  absolute  failure  from  a  cause  inher- 
ent in  our  system  of  doctrines,  or  our  mode  of  interpret- 
ing the  Gospel.  We  are  at  perfect  liberty  to  improve 
on  our  methods,  and  the  same  main-spring  which  is  the 
motive  power  to  all  Christian  hearts  may  move  us, 
though  we  have  not  yet  learnt  how  most  wisely  to  regu- 


OVERTHROW   OP  DOGMATISM.  41 

late  and  dispose  the  mechanism  which  connects  it  with 
the  world  arouna  us.  We  are  satisfied  in  our  own 
minds  that  we  have  been  at  fault  in  the  mode  in  which 
we  have  dispensed  the  Gospel,  not  in  the  mode  in  which 
we  have  received  it. 

The  point  at  which  Unitarianism  has  secured  an  emi- 
nent victory,  in  realizing  the  sure  success  and  the  pro- 
spective universal  triumph  of  its  foundation  principle, 
is  in  its  dethronement  of  dogmatism  in  religion, — that 
dogmatism  which  insists  upon  confining  the  power  of 
the  Gospel  to  a  metaphysical  system  of  doctrines  set 
forth  by  man  as  the  exponent  of  revealed  truths.  Uni- 
tarianism has  inflicted  a  death-blow  upon  this  dogma- 
tism, which  was  the  deadliest  vice  of  Protestantism, 
because  utterly  inconsistent  with  its  own  charter  of 
liberties,  and  fatal  to  its  own  dissent  from  authority. 
Unitarianism  has  had  an  immeasurable  effect  upon  Or- 
thodoxy in  this  one  direction.  Orthodox  preaching  is  in 
some  quarters  so  qualified  in  its  general  character,  that 
if  it  sounds  to  the  ear  as  its  printed  specimens  utter 
themselves  to  our  hearts  and  minds,  we  should  be  quite 
content  to  listen  to  it  in  several  places.  When  we  read 
in  the  controversial  pamphlets  of  a  half-century  ago  the 
positive  assertions  made  by  Orthodoxy,  — that  all  which 
we  retain  of  the  Gospel  is  as  nothing  compared  with  the 
importance  of  what  we  reject,  that  all  the  sublime  revela- 
tions, the  spiritual  truths,  the  divine  precepts,  and  the 
heavenward  promises  of  Scripture  are  lighter  in  the 
scale  of  faith  than  the  dogmas  of  John  Calvin,  —  and  then 
turn  to  the  pages  of  the  eminent  Orthodox  writers  of  the 
present  day,  we  stand  amazed  at  the  change.  True, 
some  lean  and  querulous  and  stingy  souls  still  give 
forth  their  dreary  or  petulant  utterances,  but  they  are 
not  the  ones  that  win  a  large  hearing,  or  speak  for  their 
party.  The  tone  and  matter  of  Dr.  Edward  Beecher's 
"  Conflict  of  Ages,"  compared  with  the  sulphurous 
4* 


42  CONCESSIONS   OF   ORTHODOXY. 

preaching  of  his  now  venerable  father,  when  he  was  the 
leader  in  revival  meetings  about  this  neighborhood,  tells 
an  interesting  tale  of  the  work  that  has  been  wrought 
here  in  the  interval  between  the  father's  manhood  and 
that  of  the  son.  True,  the  very  problematical  hypothe- 
sis by  which  the  son  has  sought  to  relieve  the  Orthodox 
dogma  of  its  dogmatism,  is  but  a  poor  device.  But  he 
is  not  to  blame  for  that,  as  he  did  the  best  he  could ; 
better  indeed  than  could  have  been  expected,  for  in 
assailing  one  dogma  he  has  not  substituted  another. 
The  two  Orthodox  men  who  now  have  the  most  influ- 
ence over  the  higher  class  of  minds  to  which  Orthodoxy 
is  to  look  for  its  advocacy  in  the  next  generation,  are  Pro- 
fessor Park  and  Dr.  Bushnell,  men  of  brilliant  genius,  of 
shining  gifts,  of  eminent  devotion,  and  of  towering  ability, 
and  regarded  by  large  circles  of  friends  with  profound 
regard  and  confidence.  Those  two  noble  expositors  of 
truth  as  they  receive  it  have  added  a  century  of  vigor- 
ous life  to  many  Orthodox  churches  around  us,  and 
have  deferred  the  final  dismay  of  that  system  for  at  least 
the  same  period  of  time.  Professor  Park's  Convention 
Sermon  is,  in  our  judgment,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
and  instructive  pieces  in  all  our  religious  literature.  For 
subtlety,  skill,  power,  richness  of  diction,  pointedness  of 
subject,  and  implications  of  deep  things  lying  behind  its 
utterances,  it  is  a  marvellous  gem  of  beauties  and  of 
brilliants.  Dr.  Bushnell's  writings,  in  some  sentences 
unintelligible  to  our  capacity,  and  in  some  points  inex- 
plicable as  to  their  meaning,  are  rich  in  their  revelations 
of  a  free  and  earnest  spirit  engaged  upon  themes  which 
keep  him  struggling  between  the  wings  that  lift  him 
and  the  withes  that  bind  him.  Those  two  honored  men 
have  relieved  Orthodoxy  in  some  of  its  most  offensive 
metaphysical  enigmas.  How  have  they  blunted  the 
five  points  of  Calvinism !  How  have  they  reduced  the 
subtile  and  perplexing  philosophy  of  the  Westminster 


WHAT    IS   UNITARIANISM?  43 

Catechism,  by  the  rich"  rhetoric  with  which  they  have 
mitigated  its  physic  into  a  gentle  homoeopathy !  Uni- 
tarianism  aimed  thus  to  abate  and  soften  religious  dog- 
matism. It  has  succeeded ;  and  the  noblest  element  in 
its  success  is,  that  it  must  divide  the  honor  with  cham- 
pions from  the  party  of  its  opponents. 

And  now  what  is  Unitarianism  ?  It  might  seem  as 
if  this  question  presented  to  us  the  hardest  element  in 
the  task  which  we  have  assumed.  Unitarianism,  as  it 
has  been  popularly  represented  and  received,  and,  indeed, 
as  it  has  been  set  forth  in  any  promiscuous  collection  of 
its  voluminous  literature,  may  seem  to  be  a  most  unde- 
fined form  of  theology.  Yet  we  insist  that  its  essential 
principles  are  very  few  and  very  well  determined,  so  that 
it  is  at  least  as  definite  a  system  as  is  that  which  goes 
by  the  name  of  Orthodoxy.  There  has  been  a  wonder- 
ful variety  in  the  range,  the  methods,  and  the  results 
adopted  by  separate  expounders  and  advocates  of  the  es- 
sential principles  of  Unitarianism,  simply  because  with 
their  Unitarianism  they  have  had  a  philosophy,  or  an 
idiosyncrasy,  or  a  love  of  speculation,  or  a  habit  of  mind 
or  feeling,  which  they  might  have  had  in  connection  with 
any  other  form  of  religious  opinion.  Indeed,  nothing 
would  be  easier  to  a  skilful  opponent  than  to  gather 
from  our  literature  a  most  astonishing  array  of  inconsist- 
ent admissions,  limitations,  and  definitions,  and  to  infer 
from  them  that  the  sect  is  but  a  rope  of  sand,  each  indi- 
viduality of  which  was  composed  only  of  angles,  and 
sharp  ones  too.  "  What  do  Unitarians  believe  ?  "  is  a 
question  which  has  perplexed  many  who  felt  bound  to  an- 
swer it  when  put  to  them,  while  it  has  been  made  to  point 
ridicule  or  censure  against  our  faith.  How  much  of  all 
this  variety  and  inconsistency  of  belief  and  exposition  is 
to  be  accounted  to  the  reasonable  necessities,  the  first 
principles,  the  essential  terms,  involved  in  the  action  of 
independent  minds  upon  the  subjects  of  faith,  and  upon 


44  THE  NON-SECTARIAN   SECT. 

the  Scriptures  which  furnish  its  materials,  only  a  very 
considerate  judgment  is  competent  to  decide.  How  far 
these  individual  eccentricities  reflect  a  prejudice  on  Uni- 
tarianism,  is  a  matter  for  the  confident  to  pronounce  upon 
while  the  prudent  are  reserved. 

In  the  antagonistic  and  apologetic  position  into  which 
Unitarians  were  driven,  they  naturally  dealt  much  with 
denials.  In  assailing  dogmatism  they  had  to  assail  doc- 
trines ;  and  in  assailing  doctrines  they  left  many  positive 
points  of  faith,  common  to  them  and  to  other  Christians, 
to  win  something  of  their  own  assurance  without  a  posi- 
tive advocacy  in  their  congregations.  In  the  mean 
time  the  Orthodox  party  were  fond  of  representing  Uni- 
tarianism  in  its  minimum  of  substance  and  of  life.  While 
we  were  saying,  Such  a  verse  of  Scripture,  or  such  a 
doctrine,  means  "  only  this,"  or  "  only  that,"  —  the  Or- 
thodox added,  "  Unitarians  believe  only  this,"  or  u  only 
that."  Saying  nothing  about  the  false  view  of  our  own 
position  and  aims  which  we  may  sometimes  have  been 
negligent  in  averting  or  correcting,  if  not  instrumental  in 
producing,  the  Orthodox,  it  must  be  asserted,  have  suc- 
ceeded in  fixing  a  reproach  upon  us  in  many  quarters. 
Their  polemical  literature  has  had  such  a  prevailing  char- 
acter of  abuse  and  misrepresentation  towards  us,  that 
many  of  their  own  communions  have  been  greatly  mis- 
led by  it.  Again,  while  we  have  suffered  the  utmost 
disadvantages  of  being  a  sect,  we  have  never  turned  into 
*  sectarian  channels  the  real  strength  of  our  fellowship. 
From  the  very  first,  a  sectarian  name,  a  sectarian  organ- 
ization, and  a  sectarian  association  were  strenuously  op- 
posed by  some  of  the  most  prominent  Unitarians  in  this 
community.  The  "  Association "  has  never  engaged 
the  hearty  sympathy  or  the  efficient  aid  of  a  quarter  part 
of  our  real  numbers.  The  formation  of  Unitarian  socie- 
ties in  some  of  our  towns  and  villages,  where  there  seemed 
to  be  an  opening  for  them,  was  discountenanced,  on  the 


THE  NON-SECTARIAN   SECT.  45 

ground  that  it  was  better  for  "liberal  persons"  to  retain 
their  connection  with  the  Orthodox  societies,  with  the  ex- 
pectation of  gradually  relaxing  bigotry  and  modifying 
the  creed.  Some  able  men  who  have  won  distinction 
and  place  through  the  controversy,  have  not  been  emu- 
lous of  repaying  the  favor  by  any  show  of  sectarian  zeal. 
In  one  sense,  we  seemed  to  begin  to  decline  the  moment 
we  began  to  try  to  strengthen  ourselves.  The  Unitarian 
sect  has  hindered  the  progress  of  Unitarianism.  The 
softened  aspects  and  manifestations  of  Orthodoxy,  the 
bad  name  attached  to  us,  and  the  dread  of  loosing  from 
old  moorings,  with  various  local  and  family  attachments, 
and  the  diminished  prestige  of  mere  preaching  to  many 
persons,  who  say  "  they  will  listen  to,  and  believe  what 
portion  of  it  they  please,  and  let  the  rest  go,"  —  these 
and  other  reasons  which  might  be  mentioned  retain  in 
other  communions  thousands  and  thousands  of  persons 
who  are  really  Unitarians,  unwittingly  or  consciously.  In 
an  early  page  of  one  of  our  journals,  we  find  the  words : 
"  We  cannot  help  believing,  that,  but  for  the  existence  of 
a  Unitarian  sect,  there  could  be  no  obstacle,  among  a 
free,  intelligent,  and  inquisitive  people  like  ours,  to  the 
rapid  and  universal  prevalence  of  Unitarianism  itself."  * 
The  inference  would  seem  to  be,  that  Orthodoxy  has 
been,  in  times  past  certainly,  a  more  efficient  agency  in 
promoting  Unitarian  sentiment,  than  has  a  positive  Uni- 
tarian sectarianism,  with  its  imperfect  methods,  and  the 
lack  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of  its  friends,  and  the  re- 
sisting measures  which  it  has  provoked.  And  this  we 
take  to  be  about  the  truth,  as  nearly  as  it  can  be  stated 
in  a  brief  way.  Unitarianism  came  in  when  nothing 
was  done  for  it ;  but  it  is  not  as  effective  an  agent  in  its 
own  behalf  as  are  circumstances,  occasions,  and  emer- 
gencies working  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  and 

*  Christian  Examiner,  September,  1830,  p.  19. 


46  THREE   DOCTRINES   OF   ORTHODOXY. 

after  the  methods  of  a  complicated  issue  between  truth 
and  error.  Wherever  there  is  a  propitious  union  of  health- 
ful religious  feeling  and  of  intelligence,  in  proportions  and 
measurements  that  we  will  not  attempt  to  define,  there 
always  has  been,  and  there  always  will  be,  Unitarian- 
ism,  in  every  age  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  in  every 
spot  of  the  earth. 

These  suggestions  might  seem  only  still  more  to  em- 
barrass an  attempt  to  answer  the  question,  "  What  is 
Unitarianism  ?  "  In  one  sense  they  do  so ;  but  in  an- 
other sense  they  help  us  to  answer  the  question,  as  all 
these  suggestions  must  be  kept  in  our  minds  as  indicat- 
ing the  elements  that  enter  into  the  Unitarian  view  of 
the  substance  and  the  significance  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ.  A  proportion,  we  think  a  large  proportion,  of  those 
who  through  force  of  one  or  another  reason  retain  a  nomi- 
nal connection  with  the  Orthodox  Congregationalists, 
the  Presbyterians,  the  Baptists,  and  the  Episcopalians, 
in  places  where  Unitarianism  has  uttered  itself  through 
books  or  pulpits,  have  degrees  of  sympathy  with  it  which 
needs  only  to  be  better  denned  to  become  much  stronger. 
We  consider  that  it  is  of  about  equal  importance  to  in- 
sist upon  what  we  have  in  common  with  other  Christian 
denominations,  and  upon  the  points  which  put  us  into 
opposition  with  them.  Unitarianism  stands  in  direct 
and  positive  opposition  to  Orthodoxy  on  three  great  doc- 
trines, which  Orthodoxy  teaches,  with  emphasis,  as  vital 
to  its  system  ;  namely,  that  the  nature  of  human  beings 

0  hasjiejm_yjtiated,  corrupted,  and  disabled,  in  consequence 
of  the  sin^of  Adam,  for  which  God/jias  in  judgment 
doomed  our  race  to  suffering  and  woe ;  thatjesus  Christ 

?>  is  Qod,  and  therefore  an  object  of  religious  homage  and 
prayer  ;  and  that  the.  death  of  Christ  is  made  effectual  to 
human__s.alvation  byjeconciling  God  to  mam,  and  satis- 
fying the-claims  of  an  in  suited^  and  outraged  law.  Uni- 
tarianism denies  that  these  are  doctrines  of  the  Gospel, 


THE   REAL  ISSUE  DEFINED.  47 

and  offers  very  different  doctrines,  sustained  by  Scripture, 
in  their  place. 

The  rejection  of  these  three  Orthodox  doctrines,  and 
the  belief  of  those  which  Unitarians  substitute  for  them, 
constitutes  Unitarianism.  All  the  rest  of  Christian- 
ity is  common  ground  between  us  and  other  denomi- 
nations. On  all  other  matters  of  Christian  doctrine  a 
Unitarian  may  be  in  entire  accordance  with  the  general 
views  of  the  Orthodox,  and  yet  be  not  one  whit  less  a 
Unitarian.  We  do  not  say,  that  Unitarians,  as  a  class, 
are  in  entire  accordance  with  the  Orthodox  on  all  other 
doctrines,  but  that  there  is  nothing  in  their  Unitarianism 
to  hinder  that  accordance.  As  regards  the  inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures  ;  the  special  design  and  agency  of  the 
Gospel,  as  a  Divine  and  miraculously  attested  scheme 
and  a  remedial  provision  for  the  redemption  of  men  ;  the 
necessity  of  regeneration,  or  a  change  of  heart,  wrought 
and  attested  by  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  justification  by  faith  ; 
the  present  mediatorial  work  of  Jesus  Christ  in  behalf 
of  his  Churdi  and  upon  the  soul  and  the  life  of  a  be- 
liever ;  revivals  of  religion,  and  the  doctrine  of  future  ret- 
ribution ;  —  as  regards  all  these  doctrines,  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  essential  and  characteristic  substance  of  Uni- 
tarianism which  puts  a  disciple  of  it  into  antagonism 
with  Orthodoxy.  There  are  Unitarians  who  hold  the 
Orthodox  views  on  all  these  doctrines,  because  they  re- 
gard them  as  Christian  doctrines.  The  issue  between 
us  and  Orthodoxy  does  not,  and  never  did,  involve  any 
necessary  collision  or  variance  on  these  points.  At  the 
opening  of  the  controversy,  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole  sub- 
stance of  the  Gospel,  and  every  ingredient  of  it,  were*  un- 
der debate  between  us  and  the  Orthodox,  and  many 
times  and  in  many  ways  was  it  asserted,  that  the  ques- 
tion between  the  two  parties  was  that  of  a  Gospel  or  no 
Gospel.  Discussion  has  brought  our  differences  within 
the  range  of  three  doctrines.     As  to  the  fundamental 


48  THREE  DOCTRINES   OF  UNITARIANISM. 

tenets  of  Orthodoxy  already  mentioned,  Unitarianism  in  a 
strongly  antagonistic  position  maintains  the  following:  — 

1.  That  human  beings  do  not  inherit  from  Adam  a 
ruined  nature ;  that  there  is  no  transfer  from  his  guilt  made 
to  us,  inflicting  upon  us  a  moral  inability;  that  our  rela- 
tion to  God  has  not  been  prejudiced  by  his  fall ;  that  life 
is  not  a  foregone  conclusion  with  any  one  of  us  when  it 
begins ;  that  we  have  not  been  condemned  as  a  race,  but 
shall  be  judged  as  individuals. 

2.  That,  whatever  be  the  rank  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
scale  of  being,  and  whatever  be  his  nature,  he  is  not  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  Scriptures  as  the  Supreme  God,  or  as 
a  fractional  part  of  the  Godhead ;  therefore  he  is  not  the 
source,  but  is  the  channel,  of  Divine  grace ;  he  is  not  the 
object  of  our  homage  or  our  prayers,  nor  the  ultimate 
object  of  our  dependence  and  trust,  but  fulfils  his  high- 
est work  for  us  when  he  leads  us  on  to  the  Father. 

3.  That  the  Scriptures  do  not  lay  the  emphatic  stress 
of  Christ's  redeeming  work  upon  his  death,  above  or 
apart  from  his  life,  character,  and  doctrine  ;  and  that  his 
death  as  an  element  in  his  redeeming  work  is  made 
effective  for  human  salvation  through  its  influence  on 
the  heart  and  the  life  of  man,  not  through  its  vicarious 
value  with  God,  nor  through  its  removal  of  an  ab- 
stract difficulty  in  the  Divine  government,  which  hin- 
ders the  forgiveness  of  the  penitent  without  further 
satisfaction. 

Unitarianism  defined  a  position  in  direct  and  complete 
antagonism  to  Orthodoxy  on  these  three  points,  and  on 
no  others.  On  these  three  points  Unitarianism  has  reso- 
lutely held  its  ground,  and  intends  to  hold  it,  firmly  and 
without  yielding  a  hair's  breadth.  Orthodoxy  has  been 
during  the  half-century  reconsidering  its  position  as  re- 
gards one  or  another  of  these  three  points,  modifying, 
qualifying,  and  abating  its  dogmatic  statement  of  its 
three  primary  doctrines. 


THE   POSITION   OF  THE   PARTIES.  49 

Now,  if  there  has  been  any  tendency  to  harmony  and 
accordance  of  opinion  and  reconciliation  of  differences 
between  the  two  parties,  it  is  to  be  referred  either  to  a 
recognition  of  sympathies,  and  a  common  belief  in  the 
other  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  in  the  realm  of  Christian 
truth  and  faith  which  was  not  appropriated  exclusively 
by  the  Orthodox  or  by  the  Unitarians,  or  else  to  the 
fact  that  the  Orthodox  have  a  better  appreciation  of  the 
strength  of  our  position,  and  of  the  dubiousness  of  their 
own  position,  on  the  three  points  of  doctrine  just  stated. 

We  propose  in  successive  papers  to  deal  with  those 
three  great  doctrinal  issues.  And  when  we  have  dis- 
posed of  those  topics  we  shall  have  to  discuss  a  very 
important  question  relating  to  the  proper  view  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  the  mode  of  treating  them  and  of  criti- 
cising and  expounding  them,  so  far  as  that  question 
has  entered  into  the  controversy.  We  hope  thus  to 
gather  some  of  the  best  fruits  of  a  half-century  of  sharp 
but  not  unprofitable  strife  between  brethren. 


UNITARIANISM  AND  ORTHODOXY 


NATURE    AND  THE    STATE   OF  MAN 


UNITARIANISM  AND  ORTHODOXY 


ON   THE 


NATUKE  AND   THE    STATE    OF  MAN. 


We  closed  the  summary  review,  in  the  preceding  pages, 
of  a  Half- Century  of  the  Unitarian  Controversy  in  Massa- 
chusetts, with  the  statement  of  three  great  doctrinal  is- 
sues around  which  a  protracted  and  a  thorough  discus- 
sion between  the  two  parties  of  the  old  Congregational 
Church  had  proved  that  all  their  differences  now  centre. 
Of  course  we  are  not  unmindful  of  the  possible  sugges- 
tion that,  as  these  three  doctrinal  issues  concern  the  very 
fundamentals  of  Christian  truth,  and  decide  the  opinions 
held  by  the  respective  parties  on  all  other  subordinate 
Christian  doctrines,  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  contro- 
versy is  perceptibly  made  more  simple  by  being  con- 
densed into  these  terms.     It  is  convenient,  however,  to 
avail  ourselves  of  this  condensation  of  terms,  even  if  the 
simplification  of  them  is  only  in  the  seeming.     But  we 
feel  persuaded  that  there  is  a  real  as  well  as  an  apparent 
step  taken  towards  a  better  conduct  of  the  controversy 
when  it  is  thus  centred  on  its  main  issues.     No  one  can 
read  over  the  voluminous  records  of  the  strife  without  a 
conviction  that,  had  the  pains  and  the  skill  of  both  par- 
ties been  spent  upon  a  close  and  careful  discussion  of  the 
5* 


54  DISPUTED  FUNDAMENTALS. 

preliminaries  of  the  controversy,  the  incidental  questions 
which  it  opened  might  have  been  made  to  aid  in  clearing 
much  of  its  perplexity,  instead  of  serving,  as  they  did,  to 
distract  and  confound,  to  irritate  and  to  mislead,  many 
readers  on  both  sides.  And  after  all  it  is  found  that  the 
two  parties  still  have  bonds  of  union.  They  accord  in 
their  theories  of  church  institution  and  organization, 
against  Romanists,  Prelatists,  and  Presbyterians.  They 
cherish  many  sacred  sympathies,  memories,  and  historical 
associations,  precious  and  venerable  to  both  alike.  Alike 
they  cling  to  the  revelation  of  God  by  Jesus  Christ,  to 
the  Scriptures  as  a  rule  of  faith,  and  to  many  common 
Christian  convictions  and  experiences.  They  agree,  too, 
upon  a  great  many  points  of  Christian  doctrine  which 
the  Unitarians  regard  as,  in  fact,  the  fundamentals  of 
Christian  doctrine.  As,  however,  these  points,  which  to 
us  are  fundamental,  though  they  are  also  admitted  as 
such  by  the  Orthodox,  are  by  them  connected  with  dis- 
puted doctrines,  and  are  sometimes  made  subsidiary  in 
vital  importance  to  other  doctrines,  our  real  accordance 
in  fundamentals  wTith  that  party  passes  for  but  little. 
But  as  regards  the  three  doctrines  which  we  have  already 
defined,  the  two  parties  are  at  variance ;  distinctly  and 
positively  opposed  to  each  other.  The  controversy  which 
commenced  in  the  supposition  of  a  great  many  other  dif- 
ferences, as  well  as  in  the  recognition  of  these  three,  while 
it  has  sunk  or  harmonized  the  others,  has  emphasized 
these.  According  to  the  side  which  any  one  may  espouse 
on  each  or  all  of  the  three  Christian  doctrines  relating  to 
the  Nature  and  the  State  of  Man,  the  relation  between 
Christ  and  God,  and  the  Atonement,  will  he  define  his 
own  position  as  to  this  controversy. 

We  now  propose  to  gather  up  the  results  of  a  long 
discussion,  as  they  bear  upon  the  first  of  these  doctrines. 

The  first  point  on  which  Unitarian  sentiment  is  found 
to  be  in  positive  and  entire  antagonism  with  the  Stand- 


TERMS   OF   THE   CONTROVERSY.  55 

ards  of  Orthodoxy,  is  that  which  concerns  the  Nature 
and  the  State  of  Men  as  responsible  creatures  of  God. 
Let  us  start  with  a  frank  understanding  of  our  ground. 
Unitarians  do  not  affirm  that  human  beings  are  born 
holy  ;  nor  that  the  original  elements  of  human  nature  are 
free  from  germs  which  grow  and  develop,  if  unrestrained, 
into  sin  ;  nor  that  no  disadvantage  has  accrued  to  all  the 
race  of  Adam  from  his  disobedience,  and  from  all  the  ac- 
cumulations of  wickedness  that  have  gathered  for  ages 
in  the  world  into  which  we  are  introduced.  Unitarians 
do  not  deny  that  all  men  are  actually  sinners3  needing 
the  renewing  grace  and  the  forgiveness  of  God,  depend- 
ent upon  the  Gospel  of  Christ  as  a  remedial  and  re- 
deeming religion,  and  having  no  other  hope  than  that 
which  Christ  offers.  Unitarians  do  not  deny  the  great 
mystery  which  invests  sin  and  evil,  nor  profess  to  have 
any  marked  advantage  over  Orthodoxy  in  looking  back 
of  that  mystery  or  in  dealing  with  it.  But  Unitarians  do 
deny  positively,  and  with  all  the  earnestness  of  a  sincere 
and  solemn  conviction,  that  the  original  Calvinistic  doc- 
trine (or  any  subsequent  modification  of  that  doctrine 
which  has  the  authority  of  an  accredited  formula  with 
the  party)  concerning  the  Nature  and  the  State  of  Man, 
is  either  a  Scriptural  or  a  Christian  doctrine. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  con- 
troversy whose  present  aspect  refers  us  back  to  its  early 
form  and  shape  if  we  would  judge  intelligently  of  its 
character.  It  is  essential,  therefore,  that  we  define  very 
clearly  one  of  the  paramount  conditions  of  the  contro- 
versy when  it  opened,  in  order  that  we  may  appreciate 
its  original  elements.  We  have  already  said  that  the 
Unitarians  understood  and  avowed  that  they  were  assail- 
ing,—  not  the  undefined  and  modified  semblance  now 
called  Orthodoxy,  —  but  Calvinism  which  had  expressed 
itself  in  positive  formulas,  and  to  whichJ^jQ^odox 
party  professed  an  unqualified  and  unj 

~    OP   7 


fettOfflfiS* 


56  THE  TRUE   CALVINISTIC   DOCTRINE. 

Since  the  controversy  opened,  Orthodoxy,  being  restless 
under  each  and  all  of  the  dogmatic  statements  in  the 
creed  of  the  three  doctrines  to  which  it  committed  itself, 
has  exhibited  its  uneasiness  in  continual  efforts  to  modify 
and  qualify  its  formulas.  Some  of  its  disciples,  feeling, 
precisely  as  our  first  Unitarians  felt,  a  shrinking  reluc- 
tance against  the  plain  literal  meaning  of  the  creed,  and 
knowing  that  they  could  not  accept  it  as  "  the  Fathers  " 
held  it,  and  yet  fearing  to  commit  themselves  to  our  the- 
ology, have  tried  in  various  ways,  with  an  amazing  exer- 
cise of  ingenuity,  to  soften  and  dilute  the  creed.  Espe- 
cially on  this  one  doctrine  of  the  complete  original  deprav- 
ity of  human  nature  have  there  been  endless  variations 
and  shadings  of  opinion.  Therefore  we  must  keep  in  view 
what  the  doctrine  was,  —  what  it  is  now  in  the  creed, — 
as  defining  the  doctrine  which  the  Unitarians  assailed 
and  denied.  The  original,  substantial  Calvinistic  doc- 
trine on  this  point  we  find,  of  course,  in  Calvin's  works, 
—  who  received  his  views  essentially  from  Augustine,  — 
and  in  the  formulas  which  professedly  Calvinistic  writers 
and  authorities  have  advanced. 

Professor  Norton,  in  a  tract  entitled  "  Thoughts  on 
True  and  False  Religion,"  had  represented  Calvinism  as 
a  "religion  which  teaches  that  God  has  formed  men  so 
that  they  are  by  nature  wholly  inclined  to  all  moral  evil ; 
that  he  has  determined  in  consequence  to  inflict  upon 
the  greater  part  of  our  race  the  most  terrible  punish- 
ments, and  that,  unless  he  has  seen  fit  to  place  us  among 
the  small  number  of  those  whom  he  has  chosen  out  of 
the  common  ruin,  he  will  be  our  eternal  enemy  and  in- 
finite tormentor  ;  that  having  hated  us  from  our  birth,  he 
will  continue  to  exercise  upon  us  for  ever  his  unrelenting 
and  omnipotent  hatred."  The  writer  referred  any  one 
who  wished  to  examine  this  scheme  to  the  Institutes  of 
Calvin,  and  to  the  perfected  development  of  it  in  the 
works  of  the   Westminster  Assembly.     Here  certainly 


MR.   NORTON   AND   THE   CHRISTIAN   SPECTATOR.  57 

there  could  be  no  question  as  to  what  form  of  Orthodoxy 
Mr.  Norton  was  impugning :  it  was,  distinctively,  Cal- 
vinism. 

The  Christian  Spectator,  an  Orthodox  journal  pub- 
lished at  New  Haven,  in  its  number  for  May  and  June, 
1822,  quoted  the  above  language  of  Mr.  Norton,  and  re- 
flected upon  it  with  extreme  severity  of  tone  and  epithet, 
accusing  the  writer  of  first  distorting,  and  then  stigma- 
tizing as  blasphemy,  doctrines  which  had  been  received 
by  a  large  proportion  of  intelligent  and  devout  Christians. 
The  reviewer  in  the  Spectator  added  further,  that  the 
views  portrayed  by  Mr.  Norton  had  "  never  been  taught 
or  professed  extensively,  as  fundamental  doctrines  of 
Christianity:  that  there  never  was  a  sect  or  body  of 
men,  denominated  Christian,  who  would  not  reject  this 
system  as  false  and  injurious,  if  presented  to  them  as 
their  creed:  that  there  never  was  an  individual  author 
of  any  celebrity  or  influence,  who  ever  taught  or  under- 
took to  defend  such  doctrines  ;  and  that  neither  '  the  In- 
stitutes of  Calvin,'  nor  '  the  works  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly,'  nor  any  of  the  Protestant  Confessions  of 
Faith,  and,  least  of  all,  the  Confessions  of  those  to  whom 
he  intended  it  should  be  applied,  contain  doctrines  which 
are  fairly  represented  by  any  clause  of  the  foregoing 
extract." 

Mr.  Norton,  feeling  his  reputation  as  an  honest  man 
to  be  insulted  by  this  direct  assault  upon  his  integrity, 
addressed  a  caustic  letter  to  the  editor  of  the  Christian 
Spectator,  the  insertion  of  which  in  the  pages  of  that  jour- 
nal he  claimed  as  his  right.  In  this  letter  he  made  a  series 
of  quotations  from  Calvin,  from  the  works  of  the  West- 
minster Assembly  of  Divines,  and  from  President  Ed- 
wards, fully  and  triumphantly  proving  all  his  points  and 
disproving  those  of  his  reviewer,  either  by  the  positive  as- 
sertions made  in  these  quotations,  or  by  the  irresistible 
inferences  to  be  drawn  in  perfect  fairness  from  them.    We 


58  MK.   NOETON  AND   THE   CHRISTIAN   SPECTATOR. 

admit  that  these  extracts,  when  arranged  and  summed 
up  in  their  doctrines,  present  a  most  shocking  portraiture 
of  Calvinism.  "We  do  not  wonder  that  an  Orthodox 
man  should  shrink  from  them  with  mingled  feelings  of 
horror  and  indignation,  or  that  he  should  avail  himself  of 
all  the  skill  of  evasive  dialectics  and  subtle  metaphysics 
to  find  relief. 

The  editor  of  the  Spectator  declined  to  insert  this  letter, 
on  the  ground  of  its  containing  some  "  reproachful  and 
menacing  expressions,"  but  promised  to  publish  its  sub- 
stance if  these  were  "  purged  "  out  of  it.  Still,  though 
the  editor  refused  to  allow  Mr.  Norton  to  address  his  own 
reply  to  the  readers  of  the  Spectator,  he  proceeded  to 
make  a  very  imperfect  and  unfair  representation  of  the 
contents  of  the  letter,  and,  by  garbled,  partial,  and  per- 
verted quotations  from  the  authorities  in  the  case,  to  en- 
deavor to  set  aside  the  overwhelming  evidence  adduced 
by  Mr.  Norton  in  support  of  his  positions.  Mr.  Norton 
therefore  published  his  letter,  with  the  remarks  of  the 
Spectator  upon  it,  in  the  Christian  Disciple  for  July  and 
August,  1822,  and  added  some  further  comments  of  his 
own.  The  utmost  that  his  reviewer  had  effected  was  to 
show  that  Calvinistic  authorities  contained  some  con- 
tradictory and  inconsistent  passages.  Of  this  fact  Mr. 
Norton,  of  course,  was  well  aware,  but  it  was  no  concern 
of  his  to  disprove  it.  He  convicted  his  reviewer,  how- 
ever, of  absolute  misrepresentation  in  a  professed  quota- 
tion from  Calvin;  of  a  poor  quibble  in  applying  the 
words  "  creation  of  nature "  to  the  divine  endowment 
with  which  each  of  us  enters  upon  existence,  when  Cal- 
vin had  used  them  only  of  the  nature  created  in  Adam; 
and  of  confounding  an  issue  of  metaphysics  concerning 
the  doctrine  of  necessity.  There  Mr.  Norton  left  the 
matter,  as  well  he  might. 

It  is  only  with  pain  and  regret  that  at  this  distance  of 
time  a  Christian  of  any  denomination  can  review  this 


ORTHODOXY   EVADING   CALVINISM.  59 

episode  in  the  controversy.  Candor  and  justice,  how- 
ever, demand  that  we  record  our  deep  and  unrelieved 
sense  of  the  disingenuousness  to  which  recourse  was 
had  on  the  Orthodox  side  in  this  issue.  How  can  there 
be  serious  or  useful  discussion  where  there  is  such  arti- 
fice, such  evasion  practised  in  asserting  and  denying,  in 
shifting  one's  ground,  in  disputing  the  authority  of  the 
very  authorities  first  appealed  to,  and  in  denying  the  fair- 
est inferences  from  dogmatic  statements  ?  Mark  the 
startling  inconsistency  between  passages  from  the  two 
attacks  on  Mr.  Norton  in  the  Spectator,  as  the  second  of 
them  gives  up  the  very  point  assumed  in  the  first,  and 
wholly  abandons  the  original  ground  of  the  controversy. 
The  Spectator  first  wrote  thus :  "  We  are  often  com- 
pelled to  complain,  that  the  opponents  of  Calvinism  never 
fairly  attack  its  doctrines,  as  they  are  stated  by  Calvin 
himself,  or  exhibited  in  the  creeds  of  the  churches,  or  the 
writings  of  the  authors  who  bear  his  name."  But  after 
Mr.  Norton  had  given  a  most  scholarly  and  thorough  an- 
swer to  this  plea,  the  same  editorial  pen,  or  authority, 
which  had  so  recently  sanctioned  the  above  statement, 
was  compelled  —  it  is  a  sad  revelation  to  make  —  to 
write  or  to  sanction  the  following :  "  What  Calvin  be- 
lieved and  taught,  and  what  any  modern  Calvin istic  au- 
thors have  taught,  are  questions  of  no  real  importance  in 
the  present  discussion,  any  further  than  their  opinions 
are  proved  to  be  prevalent  in  our  own  country."  What 
an  astounding  inconsistency ! 

But  why,  —  it  maybe  asked, — why  should  we  hold 
the  Orthodox  to  the  very  form  of  words  which  was  chosen 
centuries  ago  to  express  a  doctrine  the  terms  of  which 
have  since  been  modified  ?  We  answer,  that  we  do  this 
in  order  to  meet  the  claims  of  historical  truth  and  justice, 
and  in  order  that  we  may  clearly  understand  that  of 
which  we  are  speaking.  The  question  does  not,  at  this 
stage  of  it,  concern  the  qualifications  and  abatements 


60  EVASION   OF  THE   FORMULAS. 

which  in  recent  years  may  have  been  made  of  this  doc- 
trine of  Orthodoxy.  Unitarianism  may  or  may  not  op- 
pose these  deviations  and  reductions.  Bat  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  controversy  it  was  the  real  Calvinistic  doctrine 
which  was  assailed,  —  the  doctrine  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly's  Catechism  which  our  fathers  had  accepted,  — 
the  doctrine  of  the  New  England  Confession  of  Faith, 
which  our  churches  sent  forth  in  1680.  Fifty  years  ago 
the  Orthodox  began  to  complain,  and  they  have  ever 
since  complained,  that  Unitarians  misrepresented  them 
in  charging  upon  them  "  in  this  neighborhood  "  a  shape 
of  Orthodoxy  which  had  been  held  by  Calvinists  of  a 
former  age,  and  which  survived  only  in  other  parts  of  this 
country.  And  here  we  must  be  pardoned  for  giving 
frank  expression  to  a  disagreeable  truth.  There  seems 
to  Unitarians  to  be  something  evasive  and  very  unwor- 
thy in  the  pleas  with  which  the  Orthodox  have  met  our 
exposures  of  what  we  regard  as  the  errors  of  their  system. 
They  censure  us  and  deny  us  the  Christian  name  because 
we  reject  their  creed;  and  when,  with  the  best  faculties 
which  we  possess  for  analyzing  that  creed,  we  attempt  to 
state  the  reasons  why  we  reject  it,  they  proceed  to  tell  us 
that  they  themselves  do  not  hold  the  creed  in  what  is  to 
us  its  plain  signification.  We  have  endeavored  to  state 
fairly  its  essential  doctrines,  and  the  honest,  unexagger- 
ated  inferences  which  logically  flow  from  them.  But  no 
statement  which  we  can  make  of  the  system  is  ever 
allowed  by  the  Orthodox  to  be  fair;  some  private  qualifi- 
cations which  they  attach  to  it  in  their  own  minds,  and 
of  which  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  or  judging, 
justify  them,  as  they  think,  in  charging  us  with  misrepre- 
sentation. Now  some  Unitarians,  no  doubt,  have  made 
caricatures  of  Orthodoxy,  and  have  aimed  to  load  it  with 
offensive,  shocking,  and  blasphemous  conditions.  These 
exaggerators  of  the  hideousness  of  Orthodoxy  on  our  side 
correspond  in  temper  and  spirit,  if  not  in  tone,  with  those 


"  THE   FAITH   OF   THE   FATHERS."  61 

among  our  opponents  whose  delight  is  in  stating  Unita- 
rianism  at  its  minimum  of  every  substance  and  effect,  save 
those  of  pride  and  chilliness.  But  there  have  been  can- 
did and  truth-loving  men  among  us,  and  when  such  had 
tried  their  best  to  set  forth  their  conceptions  of  Calvinism 
at  one  or  more  points,  indorsing  their  statements  with 
the  testimony  as  to  what  had  once  been  taught  them  and 
believed  by  them,  the  remonstrance  was  raised,  i;  You  are 
bearing  false  witness  ;  you  are  ridiculing  us." 

Let  it  therefore  be  again  repeated,  Unitarianism  op- 
posed and  still  opposes  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  the 
entailed  corruption  of  human  nature  in  all  our  race  as  the 
punishment  of  Adam's  guilt.  Nor  did  the  Unitarians 
err  in  addressing  their  arguments  against  that  authorita- 
tive statement  of  Calvinism  which  is  given  in  the  Ortho- 
dox creeds.  The  Orthodox  wished  to  have  the  praise, 
they  claimed  the  honorable  and  grateful  repute,  of  "  ad- 
hering to  the  faith  of  the  fathers  of  New  England." 
They  claimed  also  the  exclusive  inheritance  of  the  old 
piety,  on  the  score  of  holding  its  doctrinal  standards. 
Was  not  the  assertion  repeated  by  them  even  to  weari- 
ness, —  too  often  certainly  to  be  regarded  as  a  mere  empty 
boast,  —  "  We  hold  the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation,  the 
doctrines  of  the  fathers  of  New  England"?  Now  the 
Calvinistic  doctrines  were  held  heartily  and  firmly,  and 
without  subterfuges  of  metaphysics,  by  the  fathers  of 
New  England.  Their  professed  successors  cannot  enjoy 
at  the  same  time  the  honor  of  holding  their  opinions  and 
the  privilege  of  changing  them.  We  are  ready  to  grant 
to  the  Orthodox  the  fullest  benefit  of  all  the  modifications 
of  this  doctrine  which  the  most  ingenious  man  among 
them  is  able  to  devise.  But  we  must  urge  that  these 
modifications  all  accrue  to  our  side,  as  they  relax  and 
soften  and  qualify  the  sternness  of  our  old  foe,  and  are 
yielded  or  availed  of  for  the  sake  of  mitigating  the  repul- 
siveness  of  the  original  doctrine.  When  Orthodoxy  iden- 
6 


62      THE  CALVINISTIC  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  FALL. 

tifies  itself  with  Calvinism,  we,  of  course,  must  confront 
and  oppose  Calvinism.  When  Calvinism,  with  its  teeth 
drawn,  and  its  claws  filed,  and  its  horns  lowered,  and  its 
hoofs  covered,  has  tamed  itself  down  into  something 
called  Orthodoxy,  we  shall  first  look  at  the  thing  from  a 
safe  distance,  to  judge  how  near  it  is  best  to  come  to  it, 
and  with  what  weapons  we  must  be  provided.  How 
long  actually  it  will  take  Calvinism  really  to  transform 
itself  into  an  angel  of  light,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Time 
and  truth  have  had  a  wonderful  effect  upon  its  visage, 
but  its  old  trust-deeds,  proclamations,  and  formulas  are 
unalterable. 

Here  then  is  the  doctrine  which  Unitarians  understood 
that  they  were  opposing.  We  quote  from  the  sixth 
chapter  of  the  Confession  of  Faith  of  the  New  England 
Churches. 

u  God  having  made  a  covenant  of  works  and  life  thereupon, 
with  our  first  parents,  and  all  their  posterity  in  them,  they  being 
seduced  by  the  subtlety  and  temptation  of  Satan,  did  wilfully 
transgress  the  law  of  their  creation,  and  break  the  covenant  in 
eating  the  forbidden  fruit.  By  this  sin  they,  and  we  in  them, 
fell  from  original  righteousness  and  communion  with  God,  and 
so  became  dead  in  sin,  and  wholly  defiled  in  all  the  faculties  and 
parts  of  soul  and  body.  They  being  the  root,  and  by  God's  ap- 
pointment standing  in  the  room  and  stead  of  all  mankind,  the 
guilt  of  this  sin  was  imputed,  and  corrupted  nature  conveyed  to 
all  their  posterity  descending  from  them  by  ordinary  generation. 
From  this  original  corruption,  whereby  we  are  utterly  indisposed, 
disabled,  and  made  opposite  to  all  good,  and  wholly  inclined  to 
all  evil,  do  proceed  all  actual  transgressions.  This  corruption 
of  nature  during  this  life  doth  remain  in  those  that  are  regener- 
ated ;  and  although  it  be  through  Christ  pardoned  and  mortified, 
yet  both  itself  and  all  the  motions  thereof  are  truly  and  properly 
sin.  Every  sin,  both  original  and  actual,  being  a  transgression 
of  the  righteous  law  of  God,  and  contrary  thereunto,  doth  in  its 
own  nature  bring  guilt  upon  the  sinner,  whereby  he  is  bound 
over  to  the  wrath  of  God  and  curse  of  the  law,  and  so  made  sub- 
ject to  death,  with  all  miseries,  spiritual,  temporal,  and  eternal." 


THE   BASIS   OF   CALVIXISTIC   THEOLOGY.  63 

The  Shorter  Catechism  of  the  Assembly,  which  also 
had  been  formally  recognized  by  our  churches,  and  was 
taught  to  all  our  children,  advances  the  same  doctrine  on 
the  same  grounds,  and  tells  us  that  "  All  mankind,  by  the 
fall  [of  Adam],  lost  communion  with  God,  are  under  his 
wrath  and  curse,  and  so  made  liable  to  all  the  miseries 
of  this  life,  to  death  itself,  and  to  the  pains  of  hell  for 
ever." 

We  purposely  abstain  from  adding  to  these  authorita- 
tive statements  of  doctrine  any  quotations  from  approved 
Calvinistic  writers,  which  follow  it  out  into  its  revolting 
and  blasphemous  details.  We  think  that  the  hideous 
and  yet  perfectly  consistent  speculations  and  representa- 
tions made  by  Edwards,  to  set  forth  the  horrors  of  hell- 
torments,  the  anguish  of  the  reprobate  who  suffer  them, 
and  the  exquisite  happiness  which  the  u  righteous  "  de- 
rive from  contemplating  them,  have  done  their  service  in 
controversy.  Jt  only  aggravates  our  opponents  if  we 
renew  those  fearful  delineations.  We  are  content  to  fol- 
low the  doctrine  as  nakedly  presented  in  the  formula. 
This  is  the  doctrine  which  by  profession  one  hundred 
years  ago,  and  in  sober  sincerity  two  hundred  years  ago, 
underlaid  the  theology  —  the  Calvinistic,  the  Orthodox 
theology  —  of  New  England.  It  was  made  the  starting- 
point  of  the  Christian  system.  It  decided  the  terms  of  re- 
lation and  duty,  of  accountability,  judgment,  and  doom, 
in  which  men  stood  to  God.  It  was  made  to  establish  the 
necessity  and  the  method  of  redemption  by  an  infinite 
sacrifice  to  God,  designed  to  serve  as  a  substitute  with 
God  for  the  sufferings  of  men.  When  Unitarians  brought 
this  doctrine  into  prominence,  and  made  its  positive,  lit- 
eral assertions,  and  the  legitimate  logical  inferences  from 
them,  a  ground  for  repudiating  such  theology,  an  alterna- 
tive was  presented  to  the  Orthodox  party.  It  offered  them 
a  choice  between  two  honest  and  manly  methods  of  pur- 
suing the  controversy  in  allegiance  to  simple  truth,  and 


64  MINOR  CONTROVERSIES  OPENED. 

with  an  entire  security  against  those  odious  passions  and 
recriminations  which  entered  into  it.  The  one  method 
would  have  held  them  to  a  candid  allowance  that  they 
were  pledged  to  that  doctrine,  with  all  the  legitimate  logi- 
cal inferences  which  of  course  must  be  admitted  to  result 
from  it  as  the  basis  of  a  system ;  and  to  a  resolute,  un- 
swerving, and  unabashed  support  of  it  against  all  oppo- 
sition. The  other  method  would  have  dictated  to  them 
to  state  frankly  any  abatement  or  qualification  under 
which  they  might  wish  to  accept  the  doctrine,  and  to  in- 
sist upon  their  right  so  to  modify  it,  and  to  be  made  an- 
swerable for  only  a  mitigated  form  of  the  doctrine.  But 
instead  of  following  either  of  these  methods,  the  dispu- 
tants on  the  Orthodox  side  endeavored  to  devise  a  third 
method,  fashioned  from  some  of  the  proper  elements  of 
the  other  two,  yet  lacking,  in  our  judgment,  the  candor 
and  truthfulness  of  both  of  them.  A  profession  was 
made  of  holding  in  all  loyalty  and  confidence  the  faith  of 
the  Fathers ;  a  confession  was  very  reluctantly  drawn  out, 
that  that  faith  was  accepted  only  through  certain  unde- 
fined abatements  made  of  it  by  a  new  philosophy  of  doc- 
trine. We  have  read  much  of  the  controversial  literature 
of  the  half-century,  but  we  have  not  met  with  one  single 
page  which  boldly  meets  the  real  issue  opened  by  such  a 
plea  for  Calvinism  as  would  have  been  offered  two  hun- 
dred years  ago.  The  very  best  proof  possible  that  Ortho- 
doxy did  not  at  least  understand  the  ground  it  had 
undertaken  to  occupy,  and  was  consequently  in  danger 
of  putting  at  risk  and  yielding  something  of  what  it  was 
trying  to  defend,  is  offered  us  in  the  following  curious 
fact,  —  that,  in,  conducting  the  controversy  with  us,  Or- 
thodoxy opened  controversies  in  its  own  ranks  that  have 
never  yet  been  decided  or  pacified.  "  The  Spirit  of  the 
Pilgrims"  was  established  to  do  battle  with  Unitarians. 
But  just  midway  in  its  series  of  volumes,  the  reader  will 
find  that  it  allowed  us  a  breathing  spell,  while  it  occu- 


ORTHODOX  DISSENSIONS.  65 

pied  its  pages  with  the  doctrinal  contentions  in  its  own 
household,  which  at  once  arose  when  Orthodoxy  under- 
took its  own  defence.  Drs.  Taylor,  Tyler,  Beecher,  and 
Woods  address  each  other,  as  well  as  ourselves,  in  those 
pages. 

.  Dr.  Woods,  who  aimed  for  candor  and  courtesy  in  his 
argument,  realized  the  necessity  of  making  a  distinct 
avowal  on  this  point ;  and  he  was  the  first  writer  of  ability 
on  his  side  who  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  the  Unitarian 
exposition  of  Calvinism  by  itself.  He  therefore  wrote  as 
follows  :  "  If  there  is  any  principle  respecting  the  moral 
government  of  God  which  the  Orthodox  clergy  in  New 
England  earnestly  labor  to  inculcate,  it  is  this :  that,  as 
accountable  beings,  ice  have  a  conscience  and  a  power  of 
knowing  and  performing  our  duty.  Our  zeal  in  defence 
of  this  principle  has  been  such  as  to  occasion  no  small 
umbrage  to  some,  who  are  attached  to  every  feature  and 
every  phraseology  of  Calvinism.  On  this  subject  there 
is,  in  fact,  a  well-known  difference  between  our  views, 
and  those  of  some  modern,  as  well  as  more  ancient 
divines,  who  rank  high  on  the  side  of  Orthodoxy."  * 
How  those  who,  according  to  the  creed  just  quoted,  are 
"  wholly  defiled  in  all  the  faculties  and  parts  of  soul  and 
body,"  and  "  disabled,  and  made  opposite  to  all  good," 
have  still "  a  power  of  knowing  and  performing  their  duty," 
Dr.  Woods  does  not  attempt  to  show.  The  difference, 
therefore,  by  his  own  statement,  between  those  who  held 
his  views,  and  the  true  Calvinists,  is,  that  he  tried  to  hold 
to  Calvinism  and  to  something  utterly  inconsistent  with 
Calvinism.  No  wonder  that  "zeal  in  defence  of  this 
principle  "  occasioned  "  no  small  umbrage." 

Thus  it  was  that,  the  moment  a  decided  opposition 
was  raised  by  Unitarians  to  this  Calvinistic  doctrine, 
those  who  came  forward  to  vindicate  it  began  to  evade 

*  Letters  to  Unitarians,  p.  130. 

6* 


66  DOCTRINAL   STANDARDS. 

its  full  force.  They  shrank  from  facing  it ;  they  shrink 
from  it  now :  they  try  to  soften  it.  A  hair's  breadth  of 
relief  from  the  pressure  of  the  doctrine  has  been  held  as 
a  blessing  by  those  who  have  argued  in  its  defence.  We 
might  try  to  present  here  a  series  of  the  ingenious  or 
futile,  the  actual  or  only  apparent  modifications,  and  at* 
tempted  modifications,  of  this  Calvinistic  doctrine.  But 
some  of  them  are  unintelligible  to  ourselves,  and  others 
of  them  which  we  think  we  understand  we  know  we 
could  not  make  intelligible  to  our  readers.  By  and  by 
we  must  refer  to  some  of  them.  We  must  not,  however, 
leave  an  impression  that,  singly  or  together,  they  give 
much  relief.  They  are  of  service  to  us,  as  showing  a 
constant  uneasiness  under  any  form  in  which  the  old 
doctrine  has  as  yet  been  presented,  and  as  indicating  how 
trifling  a  relaxation  of  its  old  terms  will  be  welcomed  as 
a  comfort. 

The  doctrine  still  stands,  however,  unchanged  in  word, 
unrelaxed  in  authority,  in  the  formulas  of  Orthodox 
churches.  Still  is  the  repute  of  holding  the  faith  of  the 
Fathers  claimed  by  those  who  are  called  Orthodox.  The 
Westminster  Catechism  and  Confession  are  the  standards 
of  the  American  Presbyterian  Church.  The  New  Eng- 
land Confession  is  the  doctrinal  foundation  of  the  Say- 
brook  Platform,  which  was  re-adopted  by  the  General  As- 
sociation of  Connecticut  in  1810.  The  Reformed  Dutch 
Church  uses  the  Confession  of  Faith  of  the  Synod  of  Dort, 
which  certainly  does  not  soften  this  one  Calvinistic  doc- 
trine. We  know,  too,  that  those  who  formed  and  phrased 
these  standards  held  this  doctrine  with  an  unflinching 
steadfastness,  in  the  boldness  and  fearlessness  of  which 
they  seem  even  to  have  found  a  trifle  of  merit  on  their  own 
part,  while  they  never  shrank  from  the  most  unrelieved 
statement  of  the  doctrine.  And  this  is  the  doctrine  which 
Unitarianism  rejected,  positively,  and  without  qualifica- 
tion, concession,  or  tolerance ;  asserting  that  it  is  not 


THE  TESTS   OF  DOCTRINE.  67 

taught  in  the  Bible,  but  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  the 
teachings  of  that  book  ;  that  it  dishonors  God  by  ascrib- 
ing to  him  a  method  arbitrary,  unjust,  and  wholly  sub- 
versive of  all  righteous  law ;  that  it  wrongs  human  nature, 
destroys  moral  responsibility,  corrupts  the  Christian  sys- 
tem, unsettles  morality,  and  leads  to  infidelity  and  irre- 
ligion.  This  is  the  ground  of  opposition,  and  these  are 
the  terms  of  it  which  Unitarianism  recognized  at  the 
opening  of  the  controversy.  Unitarianism  has  held  its 
ground  without  misgiving  or  compromise.  Unitarianism 
means  to  hold  its  ground,  —  no  more  and  no  less  than  its 
ground,  —  on  this  matter  of  doctrine.  Its  courage  and  as- 
surance and  confidence  have  steadily  increased,  as  it  has 
realized  its  own  strength  and  the  weakness  of  its  antago- 
nist on  this  doctrine  of  the  entail  on  all  the  human  race, 
on  account  of  the  sin  of  one  man,  of  a  corrupted  nature, 
which  must  work  corruption  in  this  life,  and  which  is 
sentenced  to  the  torments  of  hell  for  ever. 

When  the  human  mind  calmly  and  deliberately,  with- 
out bias,  but  with  all  the  seriousness  of  which  it  is  capa- 
ble, brings  itself  to  confront  that  doctrine,  two  great  tests 
will  present  themselves  for  trying  its  truth.  How  does  it 
consist  with  faith  in  a  God  of  adorable  attributes,  a 
Being  of  infinite  wisdom,  power,  and  benevolence? 
How  has  the  preaching  of  it  affected  the  great  mass  of 
those  to  whom  it  has  been  taught,  in  persuading  them 
to  believe  it,  and  in  impressing  them  with  any  sense 
of  its  appalling  significance  corresponding  to  its  ter- 
rific threatenings  ?  It  is  impossible  for  any  active 
mind  to  repress  its  own  instinctive  impulse  to  apply 
these  two  great  tests  to  the  doctrine.  Indeed,  the  irre- 
sistible evidence  furnished  by  any  fair  inquiry  through 
the  second  test,  as  it  presents  us  with  matters  of  practical 
experience,  is  so  conclusive  against  this  doctrine,  that  we 
are  content  with  simply  asserting,  without  any  argument, 
that  the  doctrine  cannot  abide  the  first  test.     The  utter 


68  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  FALL. 

unconcern,  the  blank  sense  of  unreality,  with  which  the 
vast  mass  of  human  beings  have  heard  that  doctrine 
preached  and  taught,  has  proved  it  to  be  in  fact  but  little 
better  than  a  bugbear.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  our 
churches  here  were  constituted  at  first  of  men  and  wo- 
men who  had  been  picked  out  as  already  believers  of  the 
doctrine ;  but  as  soon  as  they  had  descendants,  and  the 
increase  of  population  had  brought  society  into  that  state 
of  mixed  and  various  elements  which  is  natural  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  the  doctrine  became  a  fable  to  a 
larger  number  of  persons  than  those  to  whom  it  was  a 
truth.  Indeed,  the  preaching  of  the  doctrine  never  ex- 
cited the  dread  in  any  one  of  our  communities  which 
attended  merely  the  apprehension  of  a  visitation  of  the 
small-pox.  But,  in  the  mean  while,  what  was  the  influ- 
ence of  the  theoretical  truth  and  authority  of  this  doctrine 
upon  all  the  best  interests  of  religion  among  us?  It 
caused  an  untold  amount  of  unbelief  and  indifference 
and  irreligion. 

Consider,  now,  how  appalling  and  crushing  is  this  old 
Calvinistic  dogma.  God  fashioned  this  globe  as  the 
habitation  of  a  race  of  his  own  intelligent  creatures,  of 
beings  made  in  his  likeness  and  gifted  with  his  inspira- 
tion. God  then  staked  the  issue  as  to  the  nature,  the 
character,  the  experience,  and  the  doom  of  all  the  un- 
counted millions  to  be  born  here  "  by  ordinary  genera- 
tion," through  all  ages,  upon  a  single  act  of  the  first  pair 
who  represented  humanity  on  this  fresh  earth.  God  was 
thwarted  in  his  purpose  at  the  very  start.  His  first  two 
children  acted  for  all  his  children,  and  by  the  deed  of  a 
moment,  instigated  not  by  any  evil  inclination  of  their 
own,  —  for  by  the  theory  they  were  created  holy,  —  but 
by  the  subtlety  of  a  wicked  spirit,  consigned  themselves 
and  all  their  posterity  to  the  dread  pit  of  torments. 
Human  reason  instantly  suggests,  if  God  was  so  early 
thwarted  in  his  plan  because  the  constitution  of  those 


THE  DOCTRINE  OP  THE  FALL.  69 

two  beings,  with  their  state  of  exposure  to  Satan,  brought 
them  so  instantaneously  to  ruin,  why  did  he  not  at  once 
cut  short  the  growth  from  a  corrupted  stock,  forbid  the 
mischief  to  extend  even  into  one  more  generation,  and 
create  a  second  pair?  If  the  doctrine  be  true,  we  enter 
upon  life  at  a  dreadful  disadvantage.  As  the  famous  Dr. 
Bellamy  frankly  affirmed,  in  full  consistency  with  his 
creed,  "  Mankind  were  by  their  fall  [meaning  by  their, 
Adam's]  brought  into  a  state  of  being  infinitely  worse 
than  not  to  be"  *  We  as  frankly  own,  that  Unitarians  can 
say  nothing  worse  of  this  doctrine  than  one  of  its  own 
defenders  said  of  it  in  that  sentence.  And  yet  we  should 
even  now  be  met  with  the  old  charge  of  misrepresenta- 
tion, if  by  way  of  construction  and  inference  from  that 
assertion  we  should  say,  that  Dr.  Bellamy  admitted  that 
all  the  power  which  God  has  exerted  in  the  creation  of 
all  human  beings  since  the  first  two,  has  resulted  in  some- 
thing infinitely  worse  than  would  have  been  a  perfect 
blank  of  non-existence.  Our  patrimony  is  all  spent. 
The  portion  of  our  father's  goods  which  would  have 
fallen  to  us  was  all  squandered  by  our  eldest  brother. 
Scripture  tells  us  that  there  is  a  curse  upon  the  fields  of 
our  labor ;  but  Calvin  has  gone  beyond  the  Scripture, 
which  cursed  neither  Adam  nor  Eve,  and  has  taught  us 
that  there  is  a  curse  upon  the  soul  of  every  infant,  even 
while  it  is  in  the  womb.  The  prospect,  the  hope,  the 
elating,  spurring  motive  of  a  possible  charm  and  blessing 
in  existence,  is  destroyed  for  us  by  a  foregone  conclusion 
at  our  birth.  Tell  a  young  man,  in  the  prime  of  his  man- 
hood, that,  as  his  father  died  leaving  unpaid  debts,  he 
must  give  up  all  the  fruits  of  his  own  toil  till  those  debts 
are  discharged,  and  the  buoyancy  of  youth  and  a  filial 
sentiment  may  perhaps  bear  him  cheerfully  through  the 
sacrifice.     Tell  a  young  man,  that  his  father  was  bound 

*  Works,  Vol.  I.  p.  333. 


70  THE   GOD   OF  THE  BIBLE. 

at  his  death  by  an  unfulfilled  contract,  and  manly  honor 
may  induce  the  son  to  complete  it.  Or  tell  that  young 
man,  that  his  deceased  parent  died  in  a  penitentiary 
where  he  had  spent  but  half  of  the  years  for  which  he 
was  sentenced,  and  that  he,  the  son,  must  go  in  and 
serve  out  the  sentence.  Possibly,  even  then,  a  loyalty  to 
the  laws  of  a  community,  which,  as  they  secure  to  a  son 
his  father's  property,  might  also  impose  a  father's  obli- 
gations, might  induce  the  son  to  acquiesce  uncom- 
plainingly in  the  hard  exaction.  But  tell  us,  all  who  live, 
or  ever  have  lived,  or  ever  shall  live,  of  the  race  of  Adam, 
that  we  accede  to  the  obligations  of  one  of  his  debts  which 
there  is  no  paying  by  all  our  labors,  —  that  we  are  held  to 
a  contract  which  we  never  have  made,  and  which  God, 
one  of  the  parties  to  it,  has  discharged  himself  from  keep- 
ing according  to  its  original  terms  with  us,  whom  he  has 
nevertheless  compelled  to  be  the  other  party  to  it,  —  and 
that  while  we  are  yet  in  the  womb  a  transfer  is  made  to 
us  of  an  endless  sentence  in  the  pit  of  hell ;  —  tell  us  all 
this,  and  what  heart  of  man,  what  hope,  what  faith,  can 
face  it,  as  the  appointment  of  a  just  God?  A  child  has 
to  be  taught  that  doctrine.  And  what  a  lesson  it  is  for 
a  father  or  a  mother  to  teach  to  a  child,  —  to  teach,  too, 
as  a  doctrine  of  the  Bible,  the  will  of  God ! 

We  read  in  that  Bible  of  Jehovah  and  of  Baal.  The 
book  leaves  us  at  perfect  liberty,  —  indeed,  it  asks  us  to 
choose  either  of  those  beings  as  our  God.  By  what 
ground  of  choice  do  we  take  Jehovah,  and  not  Baal,  for 
our  Deity,  to  believe  in,  to  worship,  to  love  ?  Our  choice 
is  not  decided  by  the  words,  the  names,  applied  to  the 
one  or  the  other  of  those  deities,  but  by  the  character,  the 
dealings,  the  purposes,  ascribed  to  each  of  them.  We 
choose  the  One  who  is  to  be  loved,  to  be  revered,  because 
of  his  holiness,  his  justice,  his  righteousness,  his  benig- 
nity. And  so  reason  enters  its  protest  against  that  doc- 
trine.    For  there  is  a  certain  test  principle  within  us,  call 


THE   BASIS   OF  FAITH  IN  THE  BIBLE.  71 

it  reason,  judgment,  or  by  whatever  name  we  will,  which 
we  must  apply  at  least  in  first  accepting  the  Bible  on  the 
score  of  what  it  contains.  There  is  no  denying  that  rea- 
son, the  highest  gift  of  God  to  us,  is  shocked  by  that 
doctrine.  -Even  the  defenders  of  the  doctrine  allow  this. 
Dr.  Dwight  says,  "  Perhaps  no  doctrine  is  more  reluc- 
tantly received  by  the  human  mind."  *  Even  if  the  doc- 
trine were  plainly  and  positively  taught  in  a  Bible,  the 
issue  would  then  be,  Does  that  Bible  authenticate  the 
doctrine  ?  or,  Does  that  doctrine  disprove  and  nullify  the 
claims  of  the  Bible  ?  We  feel  no  hesitation  in  affirming, 
that  a  Bible  which  advanced  that  doctrine  would  divest 
itself  of  the  first  and  all-essential  proof  from  its  contents 
that  it  came  from  inspiration  of  God,  and  would  throw 
upon  all  the  other  elements  of  such  proof  a  burden 
which  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  they  could  bear. 

Below  this  and  all  similar  discussions  as  to  Scripture 
doctrine,  lies  a  question,  which,  although  it  may  be  un- 
candidly  and  unfairly  presented  or  arrayed,  must  be  hon- 
orably allowed  its  full  pertinence  and  propriety ;  namely, 
Does  the  system  of  doctrine  taught  in  the  Bible  conform 
itself  to,  or  outrage,  the  highest  and  purest  exercise  of  the 
natural  abilities  which  God  has  given  to  his  creatures 
for  interpreting  a  revelation  from  him  ?  Are  we  driven 
to  the  alternative  of  living  wholly  without  God,  without 
faith,  or  of  conforming  our  faith  to  a  shocking  and  un- 
reasonable representation  of  God  and  his  ways  ?  Does 
the  Bible  teach  such  a  scheme  as  those  who  wish  to 
have  its  help  in  a  right  and  holy  life  can  accept  ?  If  it 
does  not,  it  will  be  classed  with  the  Shasters,  the  Vedas, 
and  the  Koran.  Theologians  of  all  parties  and  sects 
may  assure  themselves  that  this  is  henceforward  the  real 
issue  on  trial  before  the  world.  And  the  parties  for  try- 
ing that  issue  are  not  a  few  classes  of  theological  stu- 

*  Sermon  XXIX. 


72  REASON  AND   REVELATION. 

dents,  trained  under  professional  influences,  made  to 
cramp  the  natural  processes  of  their  minds  by  subtle 
metaphysical  speculations,  and  taught  to  infuse  the  pure 
zeal  of  earnest  hearts  for  evangelizing  the  world  into  a 
strained  allegiance  to  a  creed  which  the  heart  repudiates. 
No!  Not  one  in  a  score  of  those  whom  Orthodoxy  ad- 
dresses with  this  dogma  accepts  it,  believes  it,  or  does 
otherwise  than  loathe  it.  Let  Orthodoxy  regard,  before 
it  is  too  late,  that  trial  of  its  dogmas  which  the  other 
nineteen  out  of  every  twenty  of  those  who  listen  to  it  are 
making.  Dr.  Woods  says :  "  Without  supposing  that 
Unitarians  have  a  preconceived  opinion  which  they  wish 
to  support,  I  am  not  able  to  account  for  it,  that  they 
should  interpret  the  word  of  God  as  they  do."  *  It  is 
even  so.  Unitarians,  we  are  free  to  confess,  have  a  pre- 
conceived opinion,  though  it  is  by  no  means  confined  to 
avowed  Unitarians.  It  is  only  by  and  through  the  help 
of  that  preconceived  opinion  that  we  are  able  or  disposed 
to  take  the  first  step  towards  receiving  the  Bible  as  in 
any  sense  "the  word  of  God,"  and  not  the  word  of  Baal. 
The  preconceived  opinion  which  we  possess  and  exercise 
is  just  as  much  a  revelation  from  God  as  anything  that 
Prophet  or  Apostle  ever  wrote  ;  and  revelation  was  given 
to  add  something  more  to  it,  not  to  mock  and  outrage 
and  deny  it.  The  same  Andover  theologian,  in  address- 
ing Unitarians  previously  (Letter  IV.)  had  written  :  "We 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  question,  how  the  common 
doctrine  of  depravity  can  consist  with  the  moral  perfec- 
tion of  God."  But,  it  may  be  asked,  in  what  way, 
through  what  means  and  processes,  are  we  persuaded  of 
"the  moral  perfection  of  God"?  Certainly  not  through 
a  doctrine  which  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  all  the  in- 
stincts and  perceptions  which  God  has  given  us.  Would 
Dr.  Woods  maintain,  that  we  have  the  means  of  assuring 


Works,  Vol.  IV.  p.  271. 


THE  GROUNDS  OF  DOCTRINAL  BELIEF.        73 

to  ourselves  the  perfection  of  the  Deity,  wholly  apart  from 
the  study  of  his  methods  in  nature  and  revelation  ? 
Would  he  maintain,  that  by  these  supposed  means  we 
can  so  convince  ourselves  of  that  sublime  truth,  that  no 
amount  of  injustice  or  cruelty  attributed  to  God  would 
either  shake  our  faith  in  him,  or  bring  into  doubt  the 
record  of  an  alleged  revelation  which  so  impugned  his 
equity?  The  methods  of  the  Divine  government  cannot 
be  distinguished  so  positively  from  the  attributes  of  the 
Deity,  as  to  leave  our  confidence  in  his  moral  perfection 
unimpaired  by  the  slightest  deviation  from  absolute  equi- 
ty in  his  dealings  with  us. 

The  question  will  naturally  present  itself  to  many 
minds,  How  have  men  ever  been  made  able  or  willing  to 
accept  this  doctrine  ?  How  have  they  overcome  the 
shrinking  reluctance  of  their  own  reason  at  a  doctrine 
which  they  supposed  was  taught  in  the  Bible?  Why 
did  they  not  rather  discredit  the  Bible,  than  accept  the 
doctrine  ?  Much  might  be  said  in  reply  to  this  question. 
If  we  had  space  and  motive  for  its  thorough  discussion, 
we  should  raise  a  doubt  whether  the  doctrine  ever  had 
been  really  and  intensely  believed  by  any  large  number 
of  intelligent  persons.  We  are  aware  that  this  assertion 
will  provoke  one  of  those  positive,  protesting  affirmations, 
that  millions  of  pious  Christians  have  heartily  believed 
the  doctrine.  We  are  willing  to  admit  that  they  thought 
they  believed  it.  But  this  is  very  far  from  satisfying  us 
that  all,  or  even  the  larger  part,  of  those  who  have  nomi- 
nally professed  to  hold  this  doctrine,  have  ever  grasped 
and  wrestled  with  its  appalling  horrors,  and,  after  stoutly 
and  intelligently  pursuing  it  by  the  logic  of  its  antece- 
dents and  its  consequences,  have  yielded  to  an  entire 
persuasion  that  it  is  the  truth  of  God.  If  it  be  said  that 
millions  of  the  believers  in  the  Molochs  and  Juggernauts 
of  heathenism  have  held,  without  misgiving,  doctrines  of 
a  similar  character  concerning  their  gods,  we  reply  that 
7 


74  THE   SOVEREIGNTY  OF   GOD. 

there  is  an  unspeakable  difference  between  the  two  classes 
of  believers,  —  the  Christian  and  the  heathen,  —  as  indi- 
cated by  the  whole  of  their  respective  religions.  Heathen- 
ism is  self-consistent.  Its  doctrines  harmonize  with  each 
other,  and  one  who  accepts  a  portion  of  them  can  accept 
the  rest.  But  a  Christian  who  professes  to  believe  this 
doctrine,  that  a  corrupted  nature,  which  dooms  us  all  to 
unending  torments,  has  been  entailed  upon  us  by  ordi- 
nary generation  on  account  of  the  sin  of  Adam,  is  com- 
pelled to  receive  it  in  connection  with  Scripture  doctrines 
of  the  Divine  justice  and  benignity,  and  of  human  indi- 
viduality in  duty  and  responsibility,  which  are  totally  and 
irreconcilably  inconsistent  with  it.  So  we  infer  that  his 
belief  must  necessarily  be  mistrustful,  wavering,  and  not 
fully  assured.  Whether  it  be  a  fact  that  most,  if  not  all,  of 
the  men  and  women  who  have  professed  to  believe  this 
doctrine  have  had  the  effort  of  belief  facilitated  to  them 
by  the  assurance  that,  through  some  remedial  process  of 
free  grace,  they  had  been  delivered  personally  from  the 
terrific  sweep  of  the  doctrine,  is  a  suggestion  which  we 
do  not  care  to  follow  out.  Any  one  who  could  believe 
this  doctrine  concerning  all  his  race  the  more  readily,  be- 
cause, without  any  merit  of  his  own,  he  wTas  rescued  from 
its  eternal  sentence,  would  be  a  monster  of  selfishness. 

Those  who  have  professed  and  have  tried,  success- 
fully or  otherwise,  to  believe  this  doctrine,  have  held  it 
on  the  ground  of  the  "  sovereignty  of  God."  They 
have  referred  it  to  the  dread  and  irresistible  prerogative 
of  that  Being  who  has  a  right  to  fashion  clay  to  honor  or 
to  dishonor,  to  do  what  he  will  and  as  he  will  with  his 
creatures,  and  who  doubtless  will  be  able  to  vindicate 
his  justice,  even  to  those  who  call  it  injustice.  In  stern 
loyalty  to  that  view  of  the  sovereignty  of  God,  sincere 
and  pious  men  and  women  have  choked  down  the  risings 
of  a  spirit  rebelling  against  this  doctrine. 

It  is  plain  that  only  the  most  positive  authority  and 


ADAM   AN  INDIVIDUAL  MAN.  75 

the  most  explicit  testimony  could  lead  us  even  to  enter- 
tain such  a  doctrine  as  having  a  claim  on  our  thoughts. 
It  is  but  little  to  say  that  the  authority,  the  testimony 
adduced  for  the  doctrine,  are  totally  inadequate  to  sus- 
tain it.  The  evidence  adduced  for  it  from  the  Scrip- 
tures is  essentially  drawn  from  a  single  passage  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  a  single  passage  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament. There  are  indeed  many  sentences  scattered 
over  the  Bible  which  are  alleged  as  incidentally  confirm- 
ing and  illustrating  the  doctrine.  But  its  intelligent 
believers  will  not  deny  that,  were  it  not  for  the  two  pas- 
sages which  are  supposed  explicitly  to  assert  it,  the  doc- 
trine would  not  be  claimed  as  a  Bible  doctrine. 

The  first  of  these  two  passages  is  the  narrative  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  of  the  creation,  the  sin,  and  the  punish- 
ment of  Adam.  Even  if  we  interpret  that  narrative  in 
the  most  rigidly  literal  manner,  we  cannot  find  in  it  the 
faintest  intimation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Westminster 
Catechism.  Not  one  word  is  said  in  the  narrative  to 
imply  that  the  sin  of  Adam  passed  over  to  his  own  chil- 
dren even,  much  less  to  all  his  posterity.  It  is  not  as- 
serted that  his  act  of  sin  corrupted  his  own  nature  even, 
much  less  the  nature  with  which  God,  for  all  time  to 
come,  would  endow  his  posterity.  What  a  stupendous 
interpolation  does  the  creed  force  into  the  record,  in  its 
positive,  but  most  false  assertion,  that  Adam  was  acting 
for  all  his  posterity,  and  that  he  "  stood  in  the  room  and 
stead  of  all  mankind,"  and  that  death  for  him  means  eter- 
nal torments  for  all  his  race  !  There  is  not  a  word  of  it  in 
the  record.  Adam  is  addressed  as  an  individual,  acting 
by  himself  and  for  himself  alone,  and  for  no  one  except  or 
beyond  himself.  "Thou  shalt,"  and  "Thou  shalt  not," 
is  the  emphatic  announcement  of  his  own  unshared  obli- 
gation and  responsibility.  The  most  literal  interpretation 
of  the  record  confutes  the  creed.  But  no  one  —  no,  not  a 
single  intelligent  reader  —  confines  himself  to  a  strictly 


76  THE  LIMITATIONS   OP  HUMAN  NATURE. 

literal  interpretation  of  that  narrative.  Whatever  be  the 
religious  opinions  of  such  a  reader,  he  sees  at  once  that 
some  allowance,  more  or  less,  must  be  made  for  the 
Oriental  imagery,  the  figures  of  speech,  the  rhetoric  and 
the  drapery,  of  that  concise  record  of  a  far-off  age.  All 
interpreters  make  such  allowances,  —  not  the  same  allow- 
ances, indeed,  in  matter  and  degree,  but  some  allow- 
ances ;  they  all  depart  from  the  letter  of  the  narrative, 
and  explain  it  constructively  and  inferentially,  the  ques- 
tion between  interpreters  being,  Which  explanation  is 
the  right  one? 

Every  just  and  consistent  claim  of  that  narrative  is 
met  when  we  regard  it  as  giving  a  sketch  of  the  work- 
ings and  the  experiences  of  humanity  on  this  earth,  in 
an  allegorical  representation,  by  which  an  individual  is 
made  to  stand  as  a  type  of  us  all.  Adam  is  and  means 
Man,  and  Adam's  experience  is  representative  of  the  ex- 
perience of  all  human  beings.  We  are  all  created  as  he 
was.  Human  nature  works  in  us  as  it  worked  in  him. 
We  sin  as  he  sinned ;  we  suffer  as  he  suffered ;  we  die 
as  he  died.  We  do  not  sin  because  he  sinned,  but  as  he 
sinned ;  in  like  manner,  since  we  have  a  like  nature.  We 
do  not  suffer  because  he  sinned,  but  because  we  ourselves 
sin.  The  narrative  teaches  us  that  a  being  constituted 
as  we  are,  —  a  type  of  humanity  on  the  earth,  —  with  our 
endowments  and  limitations  of  nature,  our  balanced 
powers  and  infirmities,  subjected  to  the  tenure  and  the 
exposures  of  life  here,  would  be  capable  of  sinning  and 
liable  to  sin,  —  that  he  would  sin,  and  that  his  sin  would 
subject  him  to  labor  and  sorrow  and  death.  This  is  the 
solemn,  yet  not  unreasonable,  doctrine  of  the  narrative. 
It  is  sufficiently  serious  and  overshadowing  in  the  dismay 
and  awe  which  it  casts  over  us.  Yet  we  accept  the  les- 
son in  all  its  solemnity,  and  would  not  trifle  with  a  let- 
ter which  is  used  in  conveying  it  to  us.  It  would  be 
invested  with  an  unrelieved  gloom  to  us,  did  not  the  nar- 


SCRIPTURE  DOCTRINE   OF  MAN.  77 

rative  immediately  connect  with  this  typical  representa- 
tion of  the  workings  of  the  experiment  of  humanity,  the 
promise  of  continued  aid,  and  of  mercy  and  blessing  and 
redemption  from  God.  So  far  is  the  narrative  from 
asserting  that  the  personal  sin  of  Adam  entailed  a  vitiat- 
ed nature  on  his  posterity,  that  it  expressly  tells  us  that 
one  of  the  two  sons  of  Adam  was  righteous  and  approved 
of  God.  But  supposing  even  that  the  original  human 
stock  had  been  corrupted  in  Adam,  the  flood  was  de- 
signed to  secure  a  new  and  purified  stock,  and  the  pro- 
genitor in  that  hope,  in  whom  it  is  written  that  the  world 
had  a  new  start,  was  "righteous  Noah,"  while  all  human 
beings,  save  himself  and  his  family,  were  cut  ofT.  It  is 
written,  "  Noah  was  a  just  man,  and  perfect  in  his  gen- 
erations; and  Noah  walked  with  God."  (Genesis  vi.  9.) 
His  family  started  afresh,  with  a  new  blessing  from  God  : 
"  And  God  blessed  Noah  and  his  sons."  Why  then,  if 
character  is  propagated  from  a  parent,  —  why  did  not 
Noah  propagate  a  pure  stock  ? 

That  one  narrative  of  Adam  in  and  out  of  Paradise  is 
the  only  passage  in  the  Old  Testament  which  can  be 
alleged  as  recognizing  in  any  way  our  connection  with 
his  personal  sin  or  Fall.  Not  another  sentence,  not  an- 
other line  in  all  the  elder  Scriptures,  ever  makes  the 
slightest  reference  to  the  subject.  No  oracle,  vision, 
chronicle,  proverb,  or  psalm  recognizes  the  doctrine. 
Not  a  single  one  of  the  inspired  prophets  of  the  Al- 
mighty to  the  Jews  ever  uttered,  so  far  as  we  know,  one 
word  implying  that  Adam  acted  for  all  his  posterity, 
ruined  us  all  in  his  fall,  and  so  foreclosed  the  trial  of 
existence  for  all  who  should  ever  live.  Is  not  this  an 
amazing  fact, —  that  those  sacred  oracles  should  be  so 
dumbly  silent  about  a  matter  which  is  said  to  underlie 
the  whole  doctrinal  teaching  of  revelation  ! 

One  passage  in  the  New  Testament  furnishes  all  the 
substantial  authority  which  the  Gospel  is  supposed  to 


78  DOCTRINES   OP  REVELATION. 

give  to  this  doctrine.  Not  a  word,  however,  can  be 
quoted  from  the  Saviour's  lips  in  recognition,  still  less  as 
an  assertion,  of  the  doctrine.  The  passage  referred  to  is 
not  from  the  teaching  of  Christ,  but  from  an  argumenta- 
tive letter  of  St.  Paul.  In  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  we  read  an  illustrative  comment  on  the 
narrative  in  Genesis,  —  not  a  new  revelation  of  doctrine. 
"We  find  nothing  in  the  Apostle's  statement  which  con- 
flicts with,  but,  on  the  contrary,  everything  to  favor,  the 
view  we  have  already  derived  from  the  earlier  record.  If 
in  the  peculiar  style  or  method  of  the  Apostle's  reason- 
ing he  may  seem  to  imply  more  than  the  record  conveys 
from  which  he  quotes,  that  is  a  trace  of  a  habit  of  his 
which  the  intelligent  interpreter  of  his  writings  meets 
with  in  other  places  in  his  Epistles.  His  words  are  :  "  As 
by  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  by  sin, 
so  death  passed  upon  all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned." 
And  this  is  saying,  not  that  we  all  sin  because  our  pro- 
genitor sinned,  nor  that  we  all  die  because  he  sinned, 
but  that,  as  the  first  man  was  a  sinner  and  a  mortal,  so 
we  are  all  sinners  and  all  mortal ;  not  because  of  a  cor- 
rupt nature,  but  because  of  a  human  nature. 

Yet  it  is  said  that  this  doctrine  of  a  disabled  nature 
entailed  upon  us  by  ordinary  generation  finds  support  in 
the  whole  system  of  revealed  truth.  We  affirm  that  it  is 
wholly  and  at  every  point  inconsistent  with  that  system, 
and  with  each  of  the  doctrinal  elements  that  enter  into 
it.  It  is  not  consistent  with  the  attributes  of  God,  as 
Wise,  and  Good,  and  Righteous.  To  say  that  his  whole 
scheme  was  thwarted,  and  that  one  lapse  of  one  individ- 
ual ruined  a  race  of  beings,  and  visited  upon  the  unborn 
in  endless  succession  the  guilt  of  a  sin  to  which  they 
were  not  parties,  —  to  say  this,  will  not  harmonize  with 
the  character  of  God.  Some  Orthodox  writers  have  pre- 
sumed that  they  involved  Unitarians  in  a  dilemma,  by 
reminding  us,  that,  though  we  assert  that  this  doctrine  of 


THE   METHOD    OF   THE    GOSPEL.  79 

native  depravity  is  not  consistent  with  justice  in  our  Crea- 
tor, we  still  have  to  admit  that  the  existence  of  Evil  is 
consistent  with  the  attributes  of  that  Being.  But  we  do 
not  recognize  the  dilemma.  The  allowance  of  evil  may 
be  a  means  of  good  for  all  men,  but  native  depravity 
must  insure  the  ruin  of  untold  millions.  Dr.  Woods* 
speaks  of  "that  vulgar  charge,  which  contains  too  much 
apparent  truth  to  be  directly  denied,  and  yet  too  much 
falsehood  to  be  admitted,  that  we  [the  Orthodox]  repre- 
sent men  to  be  as  God  made  them,  incapable  of  any 
good  till  renewed  by  irresistible  influence,  irreversibly 
appointed  to  destruction  without  any  regard  to  their 
sins."  We  will  not  use  the  word  quibble  in  connection 
with  anything  that  seemed  like  an  argument  to  Dr. 
Woods.  We  must  say,  however,  that  the  Westminster 
creed  asserts  literally,  positively,  and  fully  of  God,  all  that 
Dr.  Woods  here  repudiates.  The  loophole  for  escape, 
however,  lies  in  this  plea,  —  that  when  we  are  born  into 
this  world  we  are  not  what  God  made  us,  but  what 
Adam  made  us. 

Again,  this  doctrine  is  inconsistent  with  what  revela- 
tion teaches  of  the  nature  of  man,  as  a  free,  moral,  and 
accountable  being,  capable  of  good  and  evil,  living  in 
individual  responsibility,  never  bearing  the  iniquity  even 
of  his  nearest  in  kin,  nor  having  his  teeth  set  on  edge  be- 
cause his  father  had  eaten  sour  grapes.  It  is  inconsistent, 
too,  with  the  purpose  of  life,  as  an  opportunity,  a  gift,  a 
fair  trial,  an  unprejudiced  experiment,  and  not  a  foregone 
conclusion  to  each  and  every  human  being.  The  doc- 
trine is  inconsistent  at  every  point  with  the  Christian 
scheme.  The  Calvinistic  system,  which  teaches  this  doc- 
trine, expressly  affirms  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  does  not 
save  all  men.  So,  according  to  this  doctrine,  the  Chris- 
tian remedy  is  not  equal  to  meeting  the  disease  entailed 

*  Works,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  335,  336. 


80  ADAM   AND   CHRIST. 

upon  our  race.  Adam  did  more  of  harm  to  our  race  than 
Christ  can  do  of  benefit.  God  —  for  in  the  Calvinistic 
scheme  Christ  is  God  —  cannot  wholly  undo  for  the  in- 
nocent the  mischief  wrought  upon  them  by  one  of  his 
own  creatures !  Well  may  the  modern  Calvinist  object 
to  inferences  from  his  doctrine,  however  rigidly  fair  the 
logic  by  which  they  are  drawn.  Now  St.  Paul  says  that 
the  free  gift  of  Redemption  from  God  by  Christ  is  more, 
instead  of  less,  than  the  oflence  of  sin  by  Adam ;  that 
grace  exceeds,  rather  than  falls  short  of  the  occasion  for  it. 
"  Where  sin  abounded,  grace  did  much  more  abound," 
is  the  Apostle's  emphatic  statement.  But  it  cannot  be 
true  in  an  economy  under  which  a  human  being  entails 
sin  and  ruin  upon  his  whole  race,  while  a  Divine  Being 
—  the  Redeemer  —  rescues  only  a  portion  of  that  race. 
"  Not  as  the  offence,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  so  also  is  the  free 
gift.  For  if  through  the  offence  of  one  many  be  dead, 
much  more  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  gift  by  grace,  by 
one  man,  Jesus  Christ,  hath  abounded  unto  many." 
(Romans  v.  15.)  Bat  is  it  so  by  the  Calvinistic 
scheme  ?  Look  at  it  and  see.  Adam  brought  ruin  upon 
every  one  of  his  posterity.  "  The  guilt  of  his  sin  is  im- 
puted, and  corrupted  nature  conveyed  to  all  by  ordinary 
generation,"  says  the  creed.  Adam,  then,  made  ship- 
wreck of  the  race.  Christ  saves  individuals  here  and 
there.  The  first  pair  could  communicate  their  corrupted 
nature  to  unborn  millions ;  but  Christian  parents,  regen- 
erated, purified,  and  sanctified  by  Christ,  cannot  commu- 
nicate their  renewed  nature  to  a  single  one  in  a  large 
family  of  their  own  children.  It  would  be  difficult,  with 
such  a  theology  as  this,  to  calculate  by  how  much  the 
free  gift  is  less  than  the  oflence.  But  our  Orthodox 
brethren  must  devise  a  more  subtile  philosophy  than  they 
have  yet  invented,  to  rectify  the  loss  on  their  side  of  the 
balance  by  the  excess  on  the  Apostle's  side.  We  cannot 
but  conclude  that  this  doctrine,  instead  of  being  con- 


rS  GOD  OR  ADAM  OUR  CREATOR  ?  81 

formed  to  the  Christian  system,  is  in  utter  discordance 
with  it.  Sin  has  come  in  like  an  ocean  tide,  bearing  all 
before  it;  the  Orthodox  Gospel  saves  only  here  and 
there  a  wreck  from  the  dreary  wastes  of  woe. 

We  must  now  fix  our  attention  for  a  moment  upon 
one  of  the  most  odious  features  of  this  doctrine,  because 
it  was  there  that  the  struggle  against  it  was  concentrated 
by  its  opponents,  and  its  professed  believers  began  their 
attempts  at  modifying  it.  Observe  in  the  creed  the  as- 
sertion, made  as  positively  and  literally  as  language  will 
allow,  that  a  corrupted  nature  is  conveyed,  by  ordinary 
generation,  to  all  of  Adam's  posterity,  in  consequence  of 
his  personal  sin.  To  an  ingenuous  mind  this  assertion 
can  convey  but  one  idea.  The  lamentable  shifts  and 
evasions  and  subtilties  to  which  Orthodox  theologians 
have  had  recourse  during  the  last  half-century,  in  trying 
to  evade  the  plain  meaning  of  this  article  of  their  creed, 
are  a  scandal  upon  our  whole  profession.  That  we 
ought  to  expect  a  long  and  sad  reckoning  to  be  visited 
upon  us,  in  a  widely  diffused  unbelief,  a  distrust  of  relig- 
ious teaching,  and  a  general  and  dismal  sense  of  unreal- 
ity about  theological  dogmas,  is  but  a  looking  for  a 
retribution  the  tokens  of  which  are  too  evident  to  be 
disputed.  If  this  Orthodox  doctrine  is  not  a  most  shame- 
ful trifling  with  solemnities,  as  well  as  with  language,  it 
asserts  that,  by  the  constitution  and  appointment  of  God, 
the  one  man  Adam  had  the  power  to  communicate  a 
vitiated  nature,  like  an  hereditary  disease,  not  merely  to 
the  bodies,  but  to  the  souls,  of  all  human  beings,  and  that 
the  possession  of  that  vitiated  nature  disables  us  for  any- 
thing good,  and  inclines  us  to  all  evil,  involving  us  all  in 
guilt,  and  dooming  us  all  to  woe.  This  doctrine  either 
contradicts  truth  and  reason,  in  affirming  that  any  one 
can  be  a  partaker  in  sin  committed  before  his  birth,  or  it 
contradicts  justice  and  righteousness,  by  subjecting  us  to 
punishment  for  the  offence  of  another.     Now  the  doctrine 


82  THE  DAMNATION   OF  INFANTS. s 

of  a  sinful  nature  being  propagated  by  bodily  descent, 
like  an  hereditary  disease,  is  the  most  outrageous  and 
malignant  form  of  materialism  ever  devised.  It  makes 
man,  instead  of  God,  to  be  " the  Father  of  Spirits"  And 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  phrase,  a  sinful  nature  ? 
Does  not  this  assign  to  nature  what  can  be  assigned  only 
to  character  ?  Would  Orthodoxy  persuade  us  that  we 
create  our  own  nature  ?  "Would  Orthodoxy  transfer  from 
God  to  Adam  the  office  of  endowing  human  souls  ? 
Character  exhibits  moral  qualities,  and  within  the  range 
of  its  freedom  involves  responsibility;  but  nature  is  an 
original  limitation  and  confine  within  which  there  is  no 
responsibility.  A  sinful  action  is  a  possibility,  a  sinful 
nature  is  an  impossibility. 

An  episode  in  the  controversy  upon  the  Scripture  doc- 
trine concerning  the  nature  and  the  state  of  man,  related 
to  the  doom  of  those  who  died  in  infancy.  We  must 
make  some  reference  to  this  episode,  though  it  must 
needs  be  brief. 

The  Christian  Disciple  for  May  and  June,  1823,  had 
quoted  the  following  sentences  from  Dr.  Twiss,  Prolocu- 
tor of  the  Westminster  Assembly :  "  In  regard  to  those 
who  are  condemned  to  eternal  death  solely  on  account  of 
original  sin,  their  condemnation  to  eternal  death  is  the 
consequence  of  Adam's  transgression  alone.  Bat  many 
infants  depart  this  life  in  original  sin,  and  consequently 
are  condemned  to  eternal  death  on  account  of  original 
sin  alone  ;  therefore  the  condemnation  of  many  infants  to 
eternal  death  is  the  consequence  of  Adam's  transgres- 
sion solely."  "Adam's  sin  is  made  ours  by  the  imputa- 
tion of  God ;  so  that  it  has  exposed  innumerable  infants 
to  Divine  wrath,  who  were  guilty  of  this  sin,  and  of  no 
other."  "  There," — adds  the  Disciple, — "  we  ask  whether 
any  Unitarian  ever  attempted  to  color  or  exaggerate  a 
doctrine  like  this,  —  a  doctrine  taught  in  so  many  words 
by  the  Prolocutor  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  West- 


THE  DAMNATION   OF  INFANTS.  83 

minster,  and  by  a  thousand  others,  —  a  doctrine,  more- 
over, which  follows  necessarily  from  the  Calvinistic  sys- 
tem, and  which  would  now  be  insisted  on  by  all  real 
and  consistent  Calvinists,  if  they  thought  their  people 
would  bear  it  ?  "   (p.  220.)     In  an  earlier  volume  of  the 
same  periodical  had  occurred  this  sentence:  "We  sus- 
pect that  Orthodox  congregations  are  less   accustomed 
than  formerly,  to  hear  of  infants  being  justly  liable  to  the 
eternal  pains  of  hell."  *     Dr.  Lyman  Beecher,  in  a  note  to 
the  seventh  edition,  published  in  1827,  of  a  sermon  origi- 
nally preached  and  printed  in  1808,  repelled  as  a  cal- 
umny the  charge  that  Calvinists  believe  and  teach  "  the 
monstrous  doctrine  that  infants  are  damned."     He  as- 
serted among  other  things,  that,  having  lived  fifty  years, 
"  and  been  conversant  for  thirty  years  with  the  most  ap- 
proved Calvinistic  writers,  he  had  never  seen  nor  heard 
of  any  book  which  contained  such  a  sentiment."     He 
added:  "And  I  would  earnestly  and  affectionately  rec- 
ommend  to  all  persons  who  have  been  accustomed  to 
propagate   this   slander,  that   they  commit  to  memory 
without  delay  the  ninth  commandment,  which  is,  '  Thou 
shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbor.'  "     The 
Christian  Examiner  (Vol.  IV.  p.  431,  for  1827)  boldly 
took  up  the  implied  challenge  of  Dr.  Beecher,  and  posi- 
tively affirmed  that  "  the  doctrine  of  infant  damnation 
has  been  expressly  maintained  by  leading  Calvinists,  and 
is  connected  with  essential,  vital  principles  of  the  Calvin- 
istic system."     Then  followed  a  series  of  articles  in  the 
Examiner,  and  a  series  of  letters  by  Dr.  Beecher  in  the 
Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims,  in  exchange,  not  exactly  of  courte- 
sies, but  of  arguments  and  testimonies,  and  of  what  were 
designed  for  arguments  and  testimonies,  on  either  side  of 
the  issue  thus  opened.     To  say,  as  in  the  spirit  of  perfect 
candor  and  full  sincerity  we  are  compelled  to  say,  that 

*  Christian  Disciple  for  1819,  p.  279. 


84  THE  DAMNATION   OF  INFANTS. 

Dr.  Beecher  was  utterly  and  most  ingloriously  vanquished, 
and  that  his  opponent  gained  a  complete  and  unquestion- 
able victory,  —  to  say  this,  while  it  affords  us  no  pleas- 
ure whatever,  may  be  accounted  as  only  a  partisan  boast 
on  our  part.  If  any  one  is  inclined  to  judge,  not  us,  but 
our  decision  or  opinion  on  this  matter,  we  will  be  con- 
tent with  receiving  his  promise  that  he  will  read  the  arti- 
cles referred  to  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  volumes  of  the  Chris- 
tian Examiner.  Never,  in  our  judgment,  was  there  a  more 
fair,  or  thorough,  or  exhaustive,  or  decisive  course  of  argu- 
ment, authenticated  at  every  point,  brought  to  sustain  an 
assumed  position  in  a  matter  of  controversy,  than  may  be 
found  in  those  papers.  The  utmost  that  Dr.  Beecher 
could  be  induced  to  admit  sustained  only  the  assertion 
already  quoted  by  us  from  the  Christian  Disciple,  that  Cal- 
vinism taught  "that  infants  are  justly  liable  to  the  pains 
of  hell."  He  acknowledged  that,  according  to  his  creed, 
"infants,  by  the  imputation  of  Adam's  sin,  are  depraved 
and  guilty,  and  on  this  account  children  of  wrath,  and  ex- 
posed justly  to  future  punishment."  *  He  admitted  it  also 
to  be  a  doctrine  of  Calvinism,  according  to  Turretin,  "  that 
infants  deserve  damnation,  because,  though  not  subjects 
of  law  as  regards  action,  they  are  as  regards  disposition''' 
We  should  have  been  fully  content  to  have  accepted 
these  admissions  as  a  complete  warrant  for  the  assertion 
that  the  doctrine  of  infant  damnation  "is  connected  with 
vital,  essential  principles  of  the  Calvinistic  system."  The 
essence  of  the  horrifying  imputation  which  Calvinism 
casts  upon  the  Creator  consists  rather  in  ascribing  to 
him  the  making  of  dying  infants  liable  to  the  doom  of 
hell,  than  in  positively  affirming  that  any  infants  suffer 
that  doom.  The  Westminster  Catechism  and  the  New 
England  Confession  tell  us  that  "  Elect  infants  dying  in 
infancy  are  saved  by  Christ."     But  all  the  reserved  and 

*  Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims,  Vol.  I.  p.  46. 


THE   DAMNATION   OF  INFANTS.  85 

implied  difference  which  there  is  between  infants  and 
elect  infants  is  certainly  suggestive  of  a  class  of  non-elect 
infants,  and  if  the  distinction  in  the  terms  secures  salva- 
tion to  the  elect,  it  intimates  perdition  for  the  non-elect, 
"  dying  in  infancy." 

If,  besides  drawing  out  these  Orthodox  allowances  and 
implications,  Unitarianism  had  wished  to  repel  the  charge 
of  having  invented  this  calumny  against  Orthodoxy  or 
Calvinism,  a  very  few  quotations  like  the  following  from 
writers  not  on  the  Unitarian  side  would  have  sufficed. 

Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor  writes  thus:  "  Gregorius  Ari- 
minensis,  Driedo,  Luther,  Melancthon,  and  Tilmanus 
Heshusius,  are  fallen  into  the  worst  of  St.  Austin's  [Au- 
gustine's] opinion,  and  sentence  poor  infants  to  the 
flames  of  hell  for  original  sin,  if  they  die  before  baptism."  * 

Rev.  Thomas  Stackhouse  writes  thus:  "  The  Calvinists 
carry  the  matter  much  farther  [than  the  Schoolmen],  as- 
serting that  original  sin  (besides  an  exclusion  from  heaven) 
deserves  the  punishment  of  damnation  ;  and  therefore  they 
conclude  that  such  infants  as  die  unbaptized,  and  are 
not  of  the  number  of  the  elect  (which  have  always  a  par- 
ticular exemption),  are,  for  the  transgression  of  our  first 
parents,  condemned  to  the  eternal  torments  of  hell-fire. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of 
England  makes  too  near  approaches  to  this  opinion, 
when  it  tells  us  that,  c  in  every  person  born  into  the  world, 
original  sin  deserves  God's  wrath  and  damnation,'  —  for 
the  words  seem  to  be  too  strong  and  express,  to  admit  of 
those  mollifying  constructions  which  some,  by  way  of 
apology,  have  thought  proper  to  put  upon  thern."  f 

While  it  would  be  the  most  hopeless  of  all  tasks  for  a 
Calvinist  to  attempt  to  set  aside  the  assertions  quoted 
from  "leading  Calvinists,"  beginning  with  Calvin  him- 


*  Heber's  Taylor,  Vol.  IX.  p.  91. 
t  Body  of  Divinity,  1760,  pp.  292,  293. 
8 


86  THE   MYSTERY   OF   SIN  AND   EVIL. 

self,  in  proof  that  the  damnation  of  some  infants  has  been 
expressly  taught  by  them,  it  would  be  equally  vain  for 
such  an  advocate  to  dispute  the  logical  inference  of  the 
doctrine  from  the  Calvinistic  system.  How  can  the  doc- 
trine be  kept  out,  as  a  consequence  of  that  view  of  the 
nature  and  the  state  of  man  which  we  have  been  exam- 
ining as  a  matter  of  controversy  ? 

We  must  now  attempt  to  state,  in  terms  as  brief  and 
plain  as  is  possible,  the  doctrinal  position  which  Unitari- 
anism  has  taken  in  rejecting  this  Calvinistic  dogma  of  the 
ruin  of  the  human  race  by  the  sin  of  the  first  man,  and 
the  consequent  entail  upon  every  human  being  of  a  de- 
praved nature,  the  burden  of  which  is  guilt,  the  fruit  of 
which  is  sin,  and  the  doom  of  which  is  eternal  woe.  It 
can  hardly  be  said  that  Unitarianism  has  fashioned  any 
dogma  of  its  own  upon  this  point.  Like  all  other  classes 
of  Christians,  like  all  other  serious  thinkers,  we  are  baf- 
fled by  the  original  moral  mystery  involved  in  the  exist- 
ence or  allowance  of  evil  in  the  universe  of  God.  The 
solution  of  that  mystery  would  be  an  essential  condition 
of  any  full  and  complete  doctrinal  formula  as  to  the 
source  of  sin  in  man's  heart  and  life  ;  but  before  that 
mystery  we  bow  in  a  bewildered  amazement,  and  with 
an  oppressed  spirit  which  cannot  look  for  relief  in  this 
stage  and  scene  of  our  being.  The  great  and  leading 
position  which  Unitarianism  takes  in  antagonism  with 
the  Calvinistic  doctrine  on  this  point  is,  that  there  must 
be  some  other  construction  put  upon  the  facts  and  the 
arguments  which  are  the  materials  for  a  theory,  a  con- 
struction radically  opposed  to  that  which  Orthodoxy 
gives  them.  Unitarianism  lives  upon  the  conviction,  that 
earth  or  heaven  must  afford  some  other  explanation  of 
our  frailty  and  sinfulness  than  the  assertion  that  the 
fruits  of  one  man's  disobedience  are  entailed  upon  all  his 
posterity.  Unitarianism  lives  upon  the  assurance  that 
there  must  be  some  other  mode  of  representing  the  essen- 


SATANIC   AGENCY.  87 

tial  terms  of  the  Divine  government  over  us,  than  by  in- 
cluding among  them  this  of  the  propagation  through 
ordinary  physical  generation  of  a  corrupted  moral  nature, 
the  possession  and  the  exercise  of  which  makes  us  guilty 
before  God.  If  God  be  the  righteous  legislator  and  judge 
of  every  human  soul,  he  cannot  hold  us  amenable  to  a 
higher  standard  than  our  natures  will  admit,  nor  visit 
upon  us  a  sentence  for  another's  sin,  nor  expend  our  re- 
sponsibility beyond  the  range  of  our  individual  ability.  By 
no  effort  of  reasoning,  and  by  no  humbling  restraint  placed 
upon  our  impulse  to  reason,  —  by  no  straining  of  the  mind 
to  reach  after  truth  above  its  grasp,  and  by  no  violent 
crushing  down  of  our  rebellious  remonstrances,  —  can 
wTe  reconcile  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  with  our  instinctive 
or  our  educated  conceptions  of  God,  the  Wise,  the  Om- 
nipotent, the  Righteous.  If  this  mortal  life  of  ours  puts 
us  on  trial  for  an  eternity  of  conscious  existence,  no  re- 
tributive results  there  can  have  in  them  the  first  element 
of  justice,  unless  we  have  had  an  unprejudiced  start  here. 
Any  disability  of  nature,  any  taint  or  bias  or  proclivity 
which  precedes  the  conscious  exercise  of  our  powers,  be- 
comes an  infinite  injustice  to  us  when  its  consequences 
are  projected  into  a  future  state. 

Yet  Unitarianism  recognizes  the  deep  and  the  un- 
sounded perplexities  of  this  subject.  No  serious  person 
can  ever  think  or  speak  otherwise  than  with  a  profound 
and  oppressive  solemnity  and  dread  about  sin,  the  per- 
version and  debasement  of  moral  powers,  the  source  of 
unmeasured  woe,  the  defying  attitude  of  human  beings 
toward  God.  It  is  a  relief  to  us  to  know  that  even  the 
Orthodox  theory  of  it  is  compelled  to  recognize  for  sin 
an  origin  or  agency  apart  from  the  sphere  of  humanity, 
in  attributing  the  instigation  of  it  to  a  Spirit  of  Evil.  Still 
Orthodoxy  leaves  wholly  unexplained  the  alleged  fact, 
that  the  Good  Spirit  subjected  the  first  pair,  on  whose 
conduct  the  fate  of  uncounted  millions  of  intelligent  be- 


88  UNITARIAN  VIEWS   OF   SIN. 

ings  was  staked,  to  the  machinations  of  that  Evil  Spirit. 
Unitarianism  admits  all  the  perplexing  mysteries  of  fact 
and  experience  about  sin,  but  does  not  feel  disposed  to 
deepen  or  increase  them  by  involving  them  with  satanic 
agencies,  or  with  dates  or  incidents  prior  to  or  outside  of 
human  life  on  this  globe.  Unitarianism  does  not  deny 
the  sinfulness  of  man,  nor  does  it  discharge  that  sinful- 
ness of  positive  guilt,  nor  does  it  trifle  with  the  conse- 
quences of  sin  here  or  hereafter.  Some  of  the  most 
appalling  admissions,  and  some  of  the  most  startling  as- 
sertions as  to  the  guilt  and  the  devastations  of  sin,  are  to 
be  found  in  the  writings  of  Unitarians.  We  think  our 
general  views  of  it  are  all  the  more  serious,  because  we 
ascribe  it  to  character,  not  to  nature,  and  regard  it  as  a 
wilful  wrong-doing,  not  as  an  inherited  disease.  Unita- 
rians ask  the  Orthodox  to  help  them,  and  they  offer  their 
aid  to  the  Orthodox,  that  together  we  may  try  to  cast  some 
rays  of  reason,  light,  and  truth  upon  this  mystery  of  sin. 
But  Unitarians  insist,  firmly  and  positively,  without 
yielding  on  this  point  a  hair's  breadth,  that  the  explana- 
tion proposed  shall  not  involve  the  dogma  that  we  are 
born  with  a  depraved  heart,  that  life  is  a  foregone  con- 
clusion when  it  begins,  that  the  nature  which  is  God's 
endowment  of  us  is  corrupt,  and  that  the  character  which 
is  the  development  of  that  nature  and  the  element  of  our 
accountability  is  from  the  first  committed  to  a  diseased 
and  wicked  growth.  Calvin  tells  us  (Comment,  on  Ephe- 
sians  ii.  3) :  "  We  are  not  born  such  beings  as  Adam 
was  created  in  the  beginning,  but  are  the  corrupt  de- 
scendants of  a  degenerate  and  adulterate  parent."  Dr. 
Woods,  even  in  a  note  designed  to  relieve  this  dreary 
doctrine  (Letter  XL),  says :  "  There  is  nothing  which 
hinders  man  from  obedience  but  his  depraved  disposition, 
his  wicked  heart."  What  a  dismal  way  of  intimating 
that  an  impossibility  might  be  a  possibility,  if  it  were  not 
an  impossibility  !     Suppose  Dr.  Woods,  travelling  with  a 


UNITARIAN   VIEWS   OF  HUMAN   NATURE.  89 

companion  on  a  dreary  wilderness  way,  and  coming  to  a 
well  which  he  knew  to  be  poisoned,  should  say :  "  There 
is  nothing  to  hinder  our  being  saved  from  a  terrific  death, 
and  helped  on  to  our  happy  homes,  by  the  waters  of  this 
well,  except  that  they  are  mixed  with  a  deadly  poison." 
His  companion,  if  not  an  Orthodox  casuist,  would  be  apt 
to  reply,  that  the  exception  was  fatal  to  any  desired  good 
from  the  waters.  It  is  but  little  to  say  of  the  Calvinistic 
doctrine,  that  it  relieves  us  of  all  responsibility.  It  sub- 
stitutes a  Pharaoh  for  our  God,  ever  demanding  his  tale 
of  brick  while  he  withholds  the  material  of  them.  Uni- 
tarians, therefore,  insist  that  as  to  that  weakness  or  liabil- 
ity in  human  nature  which  shows  itself  as  we  grow  up 
as  sinfulness,  some  other  explanation  of  its  origin  shall 
be  found  than  to  call  it  an  entailed  curse,  and  some 
other  reason  shall  be  assigned  for  its  existence  in  us  than 
the  sin  of  a  progenitor,  and  some  other  title  be  given  to 
it  than  guilt,  and  some  other  retribution  be  announced 
for  our  helpless  disability  than  that  of  a  hopeless  hell. 

Unitarians  have  been  seeking,  and  are  still  seeking,  for 
relief  and  for  such  satisfaction  as  may  be  within  the 
reach  of  human  faculties,  concerning  the  problem  of  evil. 
They  have  received  some  most  valuable  aid  in  their 
speculations  from  Orthodox  writers,  who  have  worked, 
to  some  extent,  with  us  and  for  us,  while  appearing 
to  work  against  us.  All  the  modifications,  abatements, 
and  palliatives  of  which  professedly  Orthodox  writers 
have  felt  compelled  to  avail  themselves  in  dealing  with 
their  doctrine,  have  been  of  great  service  to  us.  In  the 
mean  while  Unitarianism,  taking  Scripture  for  its  guide, 
develops  its  own 'peculiar  views  somewhat  after  the 
manner  following.  After  God  had  fashioned  and  fur- 
nished this  earth,  he  left  it  for  long  ages  without  a 
human  inhabitant,  while  vegetables  and  animals  lived 
and  died  upon  it.  The  remains  of  these  primeval  plants 
and  creatures,  imbedded  in  some  of  the  lower  strata  of 
8* 


90  UNITARIAN  VIEWS   OF  HUMAN    NATURE. 

the  earth,  bear  witness  for  themselves.  In  his  own  good 
time,  God  was  pleased  to  create  a  race  of  human  beings 
to  inhabit  this  earth  in  a  series  of  generations.  Some  of 
the  conditions  and  limitations  to  which  the  life  and  the 
range  of  existence  of  these  beings  would  necessarily  be 
subjected,  were  fixed  in  the  elementary  constitution  and 
arrangements  of  the  scene  of  their  abode.  They  are 
human  beings,  a  race  lower  than  the  angels.  They  are 
spirits  in  bodies  of  clay,  formed  from  the  dust  of  the 
earth,  breathed  into  by  the  breath  of  God.  By  the  uni- 
versal law  of  all  elemental  organizations,  human  bodies 
need  renewal,  are  exposed  to  disease  and  accident,  and 
subject  to  waste,  decay,  and  death.  These  human 
beings  are  moral  beings.  So  far  as  they  are  accountable 
beings  they  are  free,  and  so  far  as  they  are  free  beings 
they  are  accountable.  That  they  may  be  free  to  do 
right,  they  must  also  be  free  to  do  wrong.  Adam,  the 
representative  man,  was  capable  of  sinning,  and  as  the 
extremest  Calvinist  never  pretended  that  Adam  was 
created  with  a  depraved  nature,  the  conclusion  is  irre- 
sistible that  a  human  being  may  be  capable  of  sinning, 
and  may  actually  sin,  without  having  any  original  taint 
of  corruption  or  depravity.  This  inevitable  inference 
visits  an  utter  discomfiture  on  the  Calvinistic  dogma, 
that  our  sin  can  have  no  other  origin  or  source  than  a 
vitiated  nature.  If  Adam  could  commit  actual  sin, 
though  he  was  not  born  in  original  sin,  so  may  each  one 
of  his  posterity  err  as  he  did  without  inheriting  iniquity 
from  him.  The  only  idea  which  we  can  form  of  the 
purpose  for  which  human  beings  exist,  is  that  they  may 
serve  the  ends  of  their  Creator  by  the  best  use  of  the 
faculties  he  has  given  them.  In  connection  with  all  the 
physical  powers  and  relations  of  these  beings,  relations 
which  concern  the  body  and  its  wants,  we  think  we 
discern  an  inner  life,  a  nobler  range  of  existence,  in  the 
elements  of  thought,  of  affection,  of  conscience,  a  life  of 


UNITARIAN   VIEWS   OF  HUMAN  NATURE.  91 

the  mind  and  the  spirit,  amid  cares  and  conflicts,  failures 
and  attainments,  lapses  and  recoveries.  That  this  higher 
life  may  be  served,  good  and  evil  must  be  placed  before 
these  human  beings,  while  the  command  is  addressed  to 
them  to  "  overcome  evil  with  good."  However  far  we 
may  carry  the  assertion  or  the  allowance  of  an  unexcep- 
tionable and  a  universal  human  sinfulness,  we  must  stop 
short  of  the  admission  that  man  is  necessarily  a  sinner, 
for  this  admission  at  once  severs  the  connection  between 
sin  and  responsibility.  This  necessary  sinfulness  is  ad- 
mitted, if  it  be  affirmed  that  man  has  a  corrupted  nature. 
An  evil  tree  can  bring  forth  only  evil  fruit.  The  decision 
as  regards  our  moral  character  cannot  be  supposed  to 
have  been  made  at  our  birth,  but  the  means,  the  mate- 
rials for  making  it,  must  lie  latent  in  the  germ  of  human- 
ity, and  life  will  afford  the  opportunity  and  the  scene  of 
their  development.  We  are  not  born  holy,  for  then  we 
should  be  what  the  angels  now  are,  who  are  denizens  of 
heaven  while  we  are  creatures  of  the  earth.  We  are  not 
born  fiends,  for  we  are  made  after  the  similitude  of  God. 
As  these  beings  must  be  capable  of  doing  wrong  in 
order  that  they  may  be  able  to  do  right,  they  should  not 
be  restrained  physically  or  morally  from  feeling  impulses 
to  do  wrong.  They  should  be  addressed  by  the  power 
of  outward  temptations,  and  there  should  be  internal 
weaknesses,  spots  on  their  breasts  not  defended  by 
heavenly  mail,  —  spots  and  weaknesses  which  tempta- 
tion should  assail.  Righteousness,  holiness,  conformity 
to  the  will  of  God,  is  the  highest  possible  result  which 
we  could  look  for  to  be  attained  by  such  beings,  and  we 
should  never  dream  of  realizing  it  as  a  birthright,  nor  as 
an  instinct,  nor  as  secured  by  an  inward  impulse,  nor 
by  outward  help.  It  should  be  the  result  of  life-long 
struggles  and  strivings,  of  falling  and  of  rising  often,  of 
groanings  and  weepings,  of  aching  and  praying,  of 
sinning  and  repenting.     It  is  enough  for  man  if  he  can 


92  THE   IMPERFECTION   OF  HUMANITY. 

die  a  reconciled  penitent.  It  is  enough  for  him  if  he  can 
reach  at  the  end  of  his  course,  after  a  life  of  blind  and 
troubled  wanderings,  that  same  Father's  house  from 
which  he  went  out  as  an  infant  and  an  embryo  spirit. 

Should  any  one  object  that  it  is  not  worthy  of  God  to 
be  charged  with  the  creation  of  such  a  race  of  beings, 
we  reply,  that  this  is  just  the  race  of  beings  that  inhabits 
this  earth,  and  that  the  fact  speaks  for  itself.  Here  they 
are,  and  they  have  never  been  anything  different  from 
what  they  are.  At  any  rate,  the  sort  of  beings  which 
we  have  aimed  to  portray  from  the  reality  of  life  are,  in 
our  judgment,  infinitely  more  worthy  of  God  than  are 
those  which  Calvinism  ascribes  to  him.  Imperfect  then 
we  are;  imperfect,  frail,  arid  mortal.  Adam  proved  in 
his  own  case  the  result  of  the  experiment  made  by  God 
with  the  elements  and  conditions  involved  in  the  consti- 
tution of  a  human  being.  The  result  of  the  experiment 
in  one  case  of  course  signified  what  would  be  its  result 
in  all  cases.  As  Adam  was  a  sinner  and  a  mortal,  so  all 
human  beings  are  sinners  and  all  are  mortal;  not  because 
he  was  a  sinner,  but  because  they  are  all  like  him  in  their 
humanity.  But  is  this  nature  of  ours  corrupt  and  de- 
praved because  it  is  imperfect?  Does  the  fact  that  we 
must  all  learn  righteousness  prove  that  we  have  pre- 
viously graduated  in  iniquity?  Does  our  imperfection 
prove  that  we  are  cursed,  and  does  our  being  under  that 
curse  prove  our  guilt?     Let  us  see. 

There  are  four  elements  needed,  as  we  say,  to  make 
up  a  human  being,  —  a  body,  a  heart,  a  mind,  and  a 
spirit.  These  are  all  undeveloped,  untrained  at  our 
birth.  How  do  we  regard  the  infirmities,  the  imperfec- 
tions, the  need  of  discipline,  help,  and  reinforcement  to 
which  they  are  respectively  subject? 

If  a  child  is  born  with  an  inherited  bodily  defect, 
crippled,  deformed,  maimed,  or  blind,  he  is  an  object  of 
our  tender  commiseration.     Who  ever  blames    him  for 


THE   IMPERFECTION   OF  HUMANITY.  93 

his  defect?  Who  would  address  to  him  a  word  of 
reproof,  or  inflict  upon  him  a  blow,  as  for  sin  ?  Even  if 
his  defect  is  entailed  upon  him  for  the  sin  of  his  parents, 
this  is  not  his  personal  guilt,  and  though  it  subjects  him 
to  suffering,  his  suffering  is  not  punishment.  His  visi- 
tation is  directly  from  the  hand  of  God. 

If  a  child  is  born  with  a  feeble  intellectual  faculty,  and 
it  is  very  hard  to  teach  him,  and  teaching  utterly  fails 
through  his  dulness  of  mind,  still  there  is  no  guilt  in 
this,  but  simply  an  original  natural  deficiency. 

If  a  child  is  lacking  in  affectionate  sensibilities  of 
heart,  and  shows  from  infancy  an  ungovernable  temper, 
the  parents  will  try  patient  culture  to  subdue  and  train 
the  child's  heart,  and  up  to  its  mature  years  its  faults  are 
for  the  most  part  spoken  of  as  constitutional  infirmities, 
rarely  as  guilt,  while  its  moderate  success  in  self-restraint 
is  estimated  as  a  heroism  in  self-discipline. 

Thus  it  is  that  we  disconnect  all  natural  defects  of 
body,  mind,  and  heart  from  the  imputation  of  guilt. 
We  do  not  expect  a  child  to  walk  till  it  has  learned  to 
walk ;  nor  to  read  till  it  has  learned  to  read.  We  are 
satisfied  always  if  a  child  learns  anything  after  it  has 
been  taught,  and  the  more  valuable  the  art  or  science  or 
knowledge  which  is  communicated,  the  more  content  are 
we  to  multiply  efforts,  to  extend  patience,  and  to  prolong 
time  in  imparting  it,  and  in  looking  for  the  fruits  of  the 
instruction.  But  now  mark  the  inconsistency  of  Ortho- 
doxy as  it  deals  with  the  fourth  element  in  a  human 
being,  —  the  spirit.  While  the  whole  of  life  is  allowed 
to  be  education  and  preparation  in  the  training  and  use 
of  all  our  lower  faculties,  the  very  dawn  of  life  is  ex- 
pected to  show  a  full-formed  perfection  in  the  exercise 
and  manifestation  of  our  highest  faculty.  Orthodoxy 
tolerates  infants  that  cannot  walk,  or  read,  or  love  their 
parents  beyond  others;  but  it  will  not  tolerate  an  infant 
that  does  not  love  and  obey  God  in  perfect  holiness  of 


94  THE  TRAINING   OF  A   HUMAN   SPIRIT. 

spirit.  If  the  spirit  of  this  little  helpless  being  does  not 
instinctively  discern  and  follow  the  supreme  good,  and 
without  any  struggle,  training,  or  conflict,  any  guidance 
or  experience,  yield  itself  to  the  love  of  piety,  then  Or- 
thodoxy cries  out,  A  Fall,  a  Corruption,  an  Alienation 
from  God!  Over  the  waste  of  dreary  ages,  and  through 
the  ashes  of  mortal  generations,  Orthodoxy  tries  to  trace 
back  the  venom  in  that  infant's  constitution  to  the  slime 
which  the  old  serpent  dropped  from  its  mouth  when  it 
spake  its  deceiving  word  to  Eve. 

Dr.  Woods  puts  to  Dr.  Ware  this  question  :  "  Do 
children  show  a  heart  to  love  God  supremely,  when  they 
are  two  or  three  years  old?"*  We  may  answer  the 
question  by  asking  another:  Why  should  they?  When 
it  takes  the  highest  spiritual  exercises  of  an  eminent 
saint  to  fashion  forth  an  adequate  conception  of  God, 
how  can  we  expect  a  child  two  or  three  years  old  to 
love  that  God  supremely? 

It  seems  to  us  as  if  Orthodoxy  involved  not  only  the 
notion  that  Adam,  not  God,  is  the  father  of  all  human 
spirits,  but  likewise  the  implication  that  God  has  nothing 
to  do  in  his  usual  providence  with  the  training  of  any 
human  spirits  except  those  of  the  elect.  Does  not  Or- 
thodoxy convey  the  implication,  that  when  human  spirits 
are  launched  upon  this  earth,  God,  as  a  usual  thing,  has 
done  with  them  ?  Now  we  regard  the  beings  we  have 
described  from  the  realities  of  life  as  constantly  depend- 
ent on  the  Divine  guardianship  and  grace;  as  constantly 
needing  new  replenishments  of  spiritual  power  and  aid; 
and  as  constantly  receiving,  or  at  liberty  to  avail  them- 
selves of,  such  help  in  their  earthly  training.  We  do  not 
believe  that  we  are  all  orphaned  of  heavenly  affection 
and  care  the  day  after  we  are  bom,  —  left  as  infants  in  a 
wilderness  cast  to  the  wolves.     It  is  not  our  doctrine, 

*  Reply,  Chap.  II. 


ATTEMPTED   MODIFICATIONS   OF  CALVINISM.  95 

that  the  influences  of  God's  Spirit  are  granted  to  some 
and  withheld  from  others.  We  believe  that  his  Spirit  is 
ever  prompting  and  helping  all  spirits,  and  is  rejected 
when  not  yielded  to  and  accepted.  That  aid  of  the 
Spirit  is  not  a  specialty  even,  still  less  a  partiality,  any 
more  than  is  a  parent's  needful  advice  and  oversight  in 
the  training  of  all  his  children.  That  spiritual  influence 
is  the  needful  and  the  natural  complement  to  the  ele- 
ments of  our  nature,  and  to  the  other  influences  which 
develop  it. 

We  should  need  space  exceeding  that  which  we  have 
already  occupied,  if  we  attempted  to  do  anything  like 
justice  in  stating  the  various  modifications  which  have 
been  introduced  during  the  last  century  into  the  old 
Calvinistic  doctrine  of  the  corrupted  and  disabled  nature 
and  the  doomed  state  of  man.  These  modifications  are 
designed  to  relieve  and  soften  the  doctrine,  to  make  it 
less  revolting,  and,  if  possible,  more  reasonable.  It  is  to 
be  understood  that  these  palliating  devices  are  invented 
by  men  who  still  profess  to  hold  substantially  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Catechism  and  the  Confession,  and  who  claim 
a  right  to  avail  themselves  of  the  utmost  liberty  of 
explanation  and  abatement.  When  we  contemplate  as  a 
whole  the  subtilties,  the  worse  than  dubious  ingenuities, 
and  the  self-convicted  duplicity  in  evasion,  which  have 
been  spent  upon  this  Calvinistic  doctrine  by  some  of  its 
nominal  disciples,  a  rising  disgust  for  everything  associat- 
ed with  this  department  of  our  theological  literature  nearly 
overwhelms  us.  There  is  but  one  suggestion  that  relieves 
our  feelings;  it  is,  that  all  these  efforts  are  made  out  of  a 
tender  desire  to  reconcile  the  God  of  the  creed  with  the 
God  of  the  heart.  It  is  not  strange,  however,  that  Uni- 
tarians should  watch  with  a  very  lively  interest,  and 
occasionally  with  a  sort  of  subdued  and  mischievous 
satisfaction,  the  processes  and  the  results  of  these  modi- 
fications of  Calvinism.     The  disciples  of  that   system 


96  ATTEMPTED    MODIFICATIONS   OF  CALVINISM. 

must  have  become  fully  aware  that  it  is  a  venturous 
and  a  hazardous  work  to  attempt  to  bring  its  dogmas 
into  reconciliation  with  right  reason. 

There  are  three  elements  entering  into  the  doctrine  of 
the  entail  from  Adam  upon  all  his  posterity  of  a  disabled 
nature,  and  they  suggest  three  questions:  First,  is  this 
disability  of  nature  a  fact?  Second,  is  it  to  be  regarded 
as  constituting,  in  the  eye  of  God,  personal  guilt  ?  Third, 
does  it  involve  an  everlasting  and  inexpressible  penalty  ? 
Of  course  a  very  large  range  is  opened  for  pleading  and 
for  modifying  opinions  in  the  discussion  of  these  three 
elements  of  the  old  doctrine.  Doctor  Chauncy,  who 
held  the  Calvinistic  views  in  the  most  moderate  form,  if 
he  held  them  at  all,  took  refuge  in  Universalism,  as  did 
the  late  amiable  and  earnest  John  Foster,  of  whose 
orthodoxy  there  is  no  question. 

Down  almost  to  the  time  of  the  commencement  of 
our  great  controversy,  the  general  teaching  of  Orthodoxy 
conformed  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Confession,  that  a  cor- 
rupted nature,  a  vitiated  and  depraved  constitution,  was 
transmitted  from  Adam  to  all  his  posterity,  by  natural 
descent,  exactly  as  a  bodily  disease,  a  gout  or  a  con- 
sumption, would  be  transmitted.  This  certainly  implies 
a  physical  inheritance  of  depravity,  a  depravity  running 
in  the  blood ;  and  this  legitimate  inference  from  the  doc- 
trine was  prevailingly  drawn  from  it,  and  prevailingly 
accepted.  It  was  at  this  point  that  the  shock  of  the 
doctrine  was  first  and  most  strongly  felt,  and  here  an 
issue  had  been  opened  between  Orthodox  theologians 
before  Unitarians  were  a  recognized  party  in  the  case. 
Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  has  given  us  a  very  concise  sum- 
mary of  the  matter  in  hand,  in  substance  as  follows.* 
He  reminds  us  that  Pelagius  maintained  that  infants 
were  born  pure,  and  became  depraved  by  a  corrupted 

*  Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims,  Vol.  I.  p.  158. 


CALVINIST8,   ARMINIANS,  AND   HOPKINSIANS.  97 

moral  atmosphere  and  by  bad  example,  while  he  denied 
that  there  is  any  certain  connection  between  the  sin  of 
Adam  and  that  of  his  posterity.  Augustine,  on  the 
other  hand,  asserted  an  innate,  hereditary  depravity,  by 
the  imputation  of  Adam's  sin.  Dr.  Beecher  adds,  that 
the  Reformers  agreed  with  Augustine  in  the  belief  that 
sin  was  propagated  with  flesh  and  blood.  Certainly 
one  would  think  that,  after  this  admission,  it  was  no 
Unitarian  slander  to  charge  this  doctrine  upon  those 
whose  boast  it  was  that  they  held  to  "  the  doctrines  of 
the  Reformation."  This  doctrine  was  first  openly  as- 
sailed after  the  Reformation,  says  Dr.  Beecher,  by  the 
Arminians  and  the  Remonstrants,  and  was  one  of  the 
Five  Points  under  sharp  debate  in  the  Synod  of  Dort. 
The  Pelagian  doctrine,  having  been  revived  at  the  Synod, 
has  found  acceptance  and  prevalence  in  the  Established 
Church  of  England,  while  "our  fathers,"  down  to  the 
time  of  Edwards,  and  including  him,  held  close  to  the 
views  of  the  Reformers.  After  the  time  of  Edwards,  Dr. 
Beecher  proceeds  to  tell  us,  the  way  of  stating  the  doc- 
trine was  changed.  "  Now,  the  New  or  Hopkinsian 
divinity  holds  that  men  are  not  guilty  of  Adam's  sin, 
and  that  depravity  is  not  of  the  substance  of  the  soul, 
nor  an  inherent  or  physical  quality,  but  is  wholly  volun- 
tary, and  consists  in  the  transgression  of  law,  in  such 
circumstances  as  constitutes  accountability  and  desert 
of  punishment."  Our  readers  will  observe  that,  while  the 
old  doctrine  has  a  meaning  perfectly  lucid,  which  ex- 
plains itself  to  us  at  a  glance,  the  modifications  of  it  are 
for  the  most  part  stated  in  a  cloudy,  obscure,  unintelligi- 
ble way,  as  if  their  vagueness  and  indefiniteness  of  terms 
would  afford  a  sensible  relief.  Dr.  Beecher,  if  hard  pressed 
in  close  conversation  by  a  clear-headed  questioner,  would 
have  to  admit  that  "the  transgression  of  law,"  and  the 
"  circumstances,"  of  which  he  speaks,  involve  the  original 
9 


98  VIEWS   OF  PRESIDENT  EDWARDS. 

elements  of  the  nature  which  an  infant  receives  from  the 
Creator  on  being  born  into  this  world. 

In  the  first  number  of  the  periodical  just  quoted,  we 
find  the  Orthodox  belief  on  this  doctrine  stated  thus  : 
"  That  since  the  Fall  of  Adam,  men  are,  in  their  natural 
state,  altogether  destitute  of  true  holiness,  and  entirely 
depraved.  That  men,  though  thus  depraved,  are  justly 
required  to  love  God  with  all  the  heart,  and  justly  pun- 
ishable for  disobedience ;  or,  in  other  words,  they  are 
complete  moral  agents,  proper  subjects  of  moral  govern- 
ment, and  truly  accountable  to  God  for  their  actions."  * 
One  year  passed,  and  then  the  same  periodical  announced 
the  following :  "  We  do  not  believe  that  the  posterity 
of  Adam  are  personally  chargeable  with  eating  the  for- 
bidden fruit  [that  is,  they  did  not  bite  the  same  apple] ; 
or  that  their  constitution  is  so  depraved  as  to  leave  them 
no  natural  ability  to  love  and  serve  God,  or  as  to  render 
it  improper  for  him  to  require  obedience."  f  Again  is 
the  scale  of  modifications  a  scale  of  unintelligibilities. 
How  plain,  as  well  as  strong  in  contrast,  is  the  language 
of  President  Edwards,  when  he  tells  us:  "All  natural 
men's  affections  are  governed  by  malice  against  God, 
and  they  hate  him  worse  than  they  do  the  Devil."  Con- 
sidering that  these  natural  affections  have  their  source  in 
the  heart,  and  that  the  heart  is  the  endowment  which 
we  receive  from  God,  the  inference  from  the  assertion  is 
unavoidable,  unless  we  again  have  recourse  to  the  notion 
that  Adam,  and  not  God,  is  our  Creator. 

Yet,  strange  to  say,  there  has  been  a  dispute  among 
the  Orthodox  as  to  whether  Edwards  did  or  did  not 
teach  the  doctrine  of  the  physical  entail  of  depravity ! 
Strange  to  say,  he  has  been  claimed  as  an  authority, 
both  by  those  who  believe  the  old  doctrine  in  this  form, 
and  by  those  who  deny  it.     Any  unprofessional  reader 

*  Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims,  Vol.  I.  p.  11.  t  Ibid.,  Vol.  II.  p.  4. 


THE   OLD   AND   NEW    SCHOOLS.  99 

who  should  attempt  to  peruse  the  discussion  of  this  ques- 
tion, Did  Edwards,  or  did  he  not,  teach  that  human  na- 
ture was  constitutionally  depraved  by  physical  entail? 
would  be  apt  to  give  over  the  task  with  a  rather  hope- 
less idea  of  the  lucidness  of  some  doctors  of  divinity. 

The  Orthodox  Congregationalists  around  us  have 
agreed  upon  some  terms  of  amity  touching  their  differ- 
ences of  Old  School  and  New  School,  as  to  the  matter 
of  Original  Sin,  and  the  essential  quality  of  our  de- 
pravity. But  the  Presbyterians,  who  build  upon  the 
Westminster  Catechism,  and  mean  to  stand  or  to  fall 
with  that,  are  by  no  means  inclined  to  pacification  on  this 
issue.  There  has  been  a  fierce  strife  carried  on  under  the 
blinding  cloud  of  dust  raised  by  the  fraternal  quarrel  of 
the  Old  and  the  New  Schools,  as  to  whether  man's 
Inability  to  meet  the  requirements  of  God's  law  is  a 
Natural  Inability,  or  a  Moral  Inability.  The  Rev.  Ezra 
Stiles  Ely,  in  his  "  Contrast  between  Calvinism  and 
Hopkinsianism,"  (published  in  1811,)  has  given  us  a  sharp 
rehearsal  of  the  controversy,  as  between  the  real  Orthodoxy 
of  our  Middle  States  and  the  diluted  Orthodoxy  of  New 
England.  But  to  us  this  question  between  the  two 
Schools  is  not  even  a  war  of  words ;  for  the  word  In- 
ability^ the  only  emphatic  and  decisive  word  involved  in 
their  doctrine,  is  a  word  accepted  and  used  on  both 
sides.  All  in  vain  does  Dr.  Woods  tell  us  that  Moral 
Inability,  in  which  he  believes,  means  only  "a  strong 
disinclination  "  to  do  the  will  of  God,  and  that  "  it  con- 
stitutes blameworthiness,"  —  "  while  Natural  Inability"  in 
which  he  does  not  believe,  "frees  from  blameworthiness."* 
For  he  also  tells  us,  in  his  Fifth  Letter  to  us,  "  that  men 
are  subjects  of  an  innate  moral  depravity,  in  other  words, 
that  they  are  from  the  first  inclined  to  evil."  From  the 
first! — the  whole  doctrine  goes  with  those  words.     The 

*  Works,  Vol.  IV.  p.  285. 


100  THE   PRIVATIVE   THEORY. 

force,  the  stress,  the  strain  of  the  doctrine,  lies  in  the  word 
Inability,  —  that  noun  substantive  which  tells  the  effect 
of  a  death-blow  struck  at  the  very  core  of  our  being.  It 
makes  very  little  difference  whether  we  connect  with  that 
substantive  the  epithet  Natural  or  Moral,  for  the  ad- 
jective seems  in  this  instance  almost  to  lose  the  office 
assigned  to  it  in  the  grammar,  of  qualifying-  a  noun.  Yet 
the  two  epithets  make  two  Schools.  How  significant 
is  the  token  that  a  hair's  breadth  of  relief,  or  of  supposed 
relief,  by  vagueness  of  words,  under  the  old  doctrine,  is 
welcomed  as  a  blessing.  One  School  tells  us  man's  de- 
pravity consists  in  this :  "  He  cannot  do  right  if  he 
wishes  to  do  so."  "  No,"  says  the  other  School ;  "  it 
consists  in  this  :  He  will  not  do  right  if  he  can."  He 
canH  if  he  will  !  —  He  wonH  if  he  can  !  A  precious  dif- 
ference! It  is  well  for  the  two  Schools  that  they  have 
both  retained  the  word  Inability.  Their  Orthodoxy  is 
safe  so  long  as  they  hold  to  that,  but  their  loyalty  to 
Orthodoxy  is  doubtful  if  they  are  bent  on  neutralizing 
the  substantive  by  any  adjective.  There  certainly  is  a 
real  difference  between  a  lack  of  power,  and  a  lack  of  the 
will  to  do  one's  duty  ;  but  if  the  lack  of  will  springs 
from  a  lack  of  power  to  will,  or  of  a  capacity  of  being 
influenced  by  the  will  otherwise  than  to  disobedience,  a 
moral  want  of  will  becomes  essentially  a  natural  want 
of  power. 

Then  there  is  what  may  be  called  "  the  Privative 
Theory"  of  our  depravity.  Some  Orthodox  men  have 
found  an  appreciable  degree  of  comfort  in  this  theory. 
It  suggests,  that,  besides  having  all  the  faculties  and  op- 
portunities which  we  have  for  meeting  our  responsibility 
to  God,  Adam  was  favored  with  a  peculiar  spiritual 
guardianship,  an  additional  inducement  and  protection 
from  a  closer  intercourse  with  the  grace  of  God,  which 
additional  security  has  been  withdrawn  from  all  his  pos- 
terity, leaving  them,  under  the  privation  of  divine  grace, 


"THE    CONFLICT   OF   AGES."  101 

to  the  common  influences  and  circumstances  of  our  ap- 
pointed state  of  being.  Well  may  we  ask  :  If  Adam, 
with  such  an  additional  security,  could  not  retain  his 
innocence,  is  our  condition  fairly  allotted  to  us,  when  it 
visits  upon  us  the  inheritance  of  his  depravity,  and  de- 
prives us  of  his  original  aid  from  the  Divine  Father? 

Still  another  modification  of  the  old  doctrine  is  pro- 
posed in  the  theory,  that  we  are  not  at  our  birth  positively 
and  actually  sinful,  but  are  simply  destitute  of  holiness. 
An  infant  is  destitute  of  holiness!  Very  true.  So  he  is. 
And  so  he  is  destitute  of  arithmetic  and  spelling.  But 
this  does  not  prove  that  he  is  ruined,  nor  that  he  will  go 
to  the  pit.  It  certainly  does  not  prove  that  he  deserves 
to  go  to  the  pit,  for  a  natural  lack  of  the  knowledge  or 
the  attainments  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring  which  he 
is  brought  into  this  world  as  a  school.  As  well  might 
we  complain  of  an  oak  for  not  bearing  full-grown  trees 
instead  of  little  acorns. 

The  most  recent  and  every  way  the  most  astonishing 
device  that  has  been  suggested  by  one  professing  to  hold 
the  old  Orthodox  doctrine,  for  the  sake  of  abating  its 
manifest  inconsistency  with  the  righteous  method  of  gov- 
ernment established  by  God,  is  that  proposed  by  Dr. 
Edward  Beecher,  in  his  marvellously  significant  book 
entitled  "  The  Conflict  of  Ages."  He  admits,  he  asserts, 
he  strenuously  and  emphatically  protests  against,  the  con- 
flicting relation  which  Orthodoxy  presents  to  us  between 
what  God  requires  of  us  and  the  nature  and  opportunity 
which  we  have  for  meeting  his  demands.  God  calls  us 
into  being  with  a  depraved  nature,  exposes  us  to  the 
corrupting  influences  of  a  fallen  world,  and  subjects  us 
to  the  assaults  of  evil  spirits,  and  then  holds  over  us  a 
law  of  holiness  which  we  are  incapacitated  from  obeving, 
while  any  falling  short  of  it  condemns  us  to  an  unending 
woe.  No  Unitarian  pen  has  ever  made  a  more  painful 
or  a  more  appalling  statement  of  the  irreconcilable  con- 
9* 


102  PRE-EXISTENCE   OF  IIUMAN   SOULS. 

flict  between  Orthodox  doctrine  and  the  laws  of  honor 
and  justice  ascribed  to  the  Divine  government,  than  the 
pen  of  Dr.  Beecher  has  written  out  with  a  most  heroic 
sturdiness  of  candor.  His  conclusion  is,  that,  according 
to  the  Orthodox  doctrine,  God  has  not  dealt  fairly  with 
us,  but  is  practising  toward  us  a  tyranny  of  the  most 
ruthless  sort.  God  has  not  given  us  a  fair  start,  an  un- 
prejudiced, free,  and  hopeful  trial  for  an  immortal  issue. 
If  God  has  appointed  our  earthly  existence  as  a  proba- 
tion for  eternal  life,  he  should  have  created  us  with  an 
integrity  of  nature  and  a  healthfulness  of  soul  which 
would  have  excluded  every  sinful  proclivity  or  bias; 
indeed,  we  might  even  claim  that  we  should  have  been 
biassed  in  the  direction  of  holiness.  Orthodoxy  says 
we  are  not  born  in  this  state  of  innocence.  Dr.  Beecher 
says  the  same,  and  he  says  it  with  an  unquestioned 
loyalty  to  the  creed  in  conformity  with  which  he  dis- 
charges his  office  of  a  Christian  minister.  How  then 
does  he  reconcile  the  "  Conflict"  which  he  has  so  nobly 
and  so  faithfully  delineated  ?  Why  thus.  He  says  that 
we  once  had  a  fair  and  unprejudiced  start  in  the  unend- 
ing career  of  existence  ; —  not  indeed  here,  in  this  world, 
but  elsewhere.  We  were  not  created  when  we  were  born 
into  this  world.  We  had  been  created  and  had  existed 
in  another  place,  and  in  another  state,  as  spirits,  and  had 
sinned,  and  fallen,  and  been  condemned.  God  is  giving 
us  here  a  new  trial  under  the  light  of  the  Gospel.  Re- 
served in  some  of  the  gloomy  caverns  of  sentenced  guilt 
and  hopeless  despair  in  this  universe,  are  imprisoned  the 
rebel  crew  of  angels  who  sided  with  Satan  in  the  great 
rebellion  in  heaven.  When  an  infant  body  is  born  into 
this  world,  God  looses  from  the  chains  of  that  prison- 
bouse  one  of  these  condemned  spirits,  with  the  chance  of 
being  numbered  among  the  elect  as  one  whom  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ  may  redeem.  Behold  how  wonderfully  this 
solution  of  the  problem  converts  the  darkest  imputation 


PRESENT  RELATION  OF  PARTIES.  103 

ever  cast  upon  the  righteous  government  of  God  into  a 
most  winning  display  of  his  grace,  in  offering  a  new  op- 
portunity to  beings  already  condemned  !  Calvinism  re- 
quires of  beings  created  as  sinners  that  they  should  live 
as  angels.  Dr.  Beecher  sees  the  countenance  of  an  old 
fiend  under  the  sweet  features  of  infancy,  and  takes  the 
fair  mask  as  the  symbol  of  a  redemption  which,  by  the 
grace  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ,  shall  recall  that  vic- 
tim of  the  pit  to  the  communion  of  the  saints  above. 
Such  is  the  latest  modification  of  Calvinism. 

We  have  thus  given  —  at  a  tedious,  though  a  neces- 
sary length  —  a  statement  of  the  controversy  opened  fifty 
years  ago,  and  ever  since  kept  open,  between  Unitari- 
anism  and  Orthodoxy,  on  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  the 
Nature  and  the  State  of  Man.  We  have  stated  the  Cal- 
vinistic  doctrine  in  the  words  of  the  old  formula,  which 
is  even  to  this  day  nominally  held  in  Orthodox  churches 
and  schools  of  theology.  We  have  avowed  the  positive 
denial  of  that  doctrine,  and  of  every  accepted  modification 
of  it,  by  Unitarianism,  and  have  presented  the  general 
views  which  Unitarians  in  the  lack  of  a  dogma  adopt 
as  a  substitute  for  that  doctrine.  There  is  a  vast  differ- 
ence between  falling  from  and  falling  short  of  holiness. 
We  deny  that  there  has  ever  been  on  this  earth  a  fall  of 
a  single  human  being  from  holiness,  and  assert  the  fact 
that  all  human  beings  fall  short  of  holiness.  Finally,  we 
have  made  a  brief  reference  to  some  of  the  modifying 
and  qualifying  theories  which  Orthodox  writers  have 
invented  to  relieve  the  strain  of  their  own  doctrine. 

And  now  comes  a  question  which  embraces  two  terms, 
as  it  concerns  the  present  bearings  and  aspect  of  this 
controversy  to  the  original  parties  to  it:  Is  Unitarian- 
ism yielding  its  opinion,  reconciling  its  difference,  abat- 
ing its  opposition,  and  going  over  to  Orthodoxy,  on  the 
ground  covered  by  this  doctrine  ?  We  answer  positively, 
No!     Unitarianism  does  not  yield  an  inch.     It  holds  its 


104  CONDITIONS   OF  PEACE. 

ground  firmly  and  resolutely,  and  means  to  hold  it.  It 
was  never  better  assured  of  its  position  than  now. 

Is  Orthodoxy  yielding  its  ground  on  this  doctrine  ? 
Our  readers  shall  answer  that  question  for  themselves. 

In  the  mean  while,  how  shall  the  two  parties  to  an  old 
strife  regard  their  present  relations  to  each  other,  in  view 
of  their  fundamental  variance  concerning  this  one  doc- 
trine involved  in  the  dark  mystery  of  sin  ?  Let  us  cease 
from  all  acrimony  and  strife,  and  try  together  to  throw 
what  light  we  can  upon  the  problem.  A  truer  philosophy 
of  life  and  of  man  may  help  us.  A  better  understanding 
of  the  Scriptures  may  aid  us.  But  after  all,  Unitarians 
and  Orthodox  will  be  most  likely  to  throw  light  on  this 
sad  mystery  of  sin,  when  with  Christian  hearts  and  hands 
they  strive  faithfully,  in  their  own  way,  to  rid  themselves 
and  the  world  of  its  malignant  power. 


UNITAMANISM  AND  OETHODOXY 


ON 


GOD   AND   CHRIST 


UNITARIANISM  AND  ORTHODOXY 


GOD   AND   CHRIST 


The  second  of  the  three  great,  comprehensive  doctri- 
nal issues  to  which,  as  we  have  inferred,  the  controversy 
between  the  Unitarians  and  the  Orthodox  has  been  re- 
duced, after  an  half-century  of  earnest  and  various  dis- 
cussion, now  invites  our  attention.  Our  aim  is  to  sum 
up  its  prominent  points,  to  concentrate  its  scattered  dis- 
putes, and  to  seek  the  results  to  which  either  party  may 
have  been  brought,  so  far  as  they  involve  concession,  or 
qualification,  or  a  reassertion  of  the  original  grounds  of 
the  controversy. 

The  controversy  centres  upon  this  question,  —  Is  Jesus 
Christ  presented  to  us  in  the  New  Testament  as  possess- 
ing the  underived  honors  of  the  Godhead,  as  claiming  by 
himself  and  by  his  Apostles  the  supreme  prerogative  of 
Deity,  and  therefore  as  an  object  of  worship  and  prayer, 
and  of  our  ultimate  religious  dependence  ?  Orthodoxy 
answers  this  question  in  the  affirmative,  Unitarianism 
answers  it  in  the  negative. 

In  strictness  of  construction,  this  one  point  of  doctri- 
nal difference  might  be  regarded  as  constituting  the  sole 
issue  which  divides  the  two  parties.     For  controversial 


108  CONNECTION   OF  DOCTRINES. 

discussion  has  made  it  evident  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Deity  of  Christ  has  been  maintained  chiefly  on  account 
of  the  relations  which  are  presumed  by  Orthodoxy  to 
exist  between  this  and  its  two  other  fundamental  doc- 
trines,—  the  depravity  of  human  nature,  and  a  vicarious 
sacrifice  made  to  God  for  the  redemption  of  men.  Or- 
thodoxy affirms,  that  nothing  short  of  an  infinite  expiation 
could  suffice  to  redeem  our  race  from  the  consequences 
of  Adam's  fall ;  therefore  Christ,  the  Redeemer,  must  be 
God.  Orthodoxy  affirms,  that  only  the  Being  against 
whom  the  offence  of  sin  is  committed  could  provide  an 
adequate  penalty  for  it,  as  it  required  an  infinite  penalty, 
and  therefore  the  sacrifice  made  for  it  was  the  sacrifice 
of  God.  It  is  thus  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Deity  of 
Christ  has  been  supposed  to  be  vital  to  the  Christian 
system,  as  alone  consistent  with  its  other  doctrines  con- 
cerning God  and  man,  and  the  relations  of  enmity  and 
the  proffered  terms  of, reconciliation  between  them.  The 
doctrine  having  been  thus  pronounced  essential  to  the 
theological  exposition  of  the  Christian  faith,  it  is  made 
to  carry  with  it,  not  only  such  weight  of  authority  as  it 
is  claimed  to  derive  from  its  positive  announcement  in 
the  Scriptures,  but  also  such  strong  incidental  support 
and  warrant  as  attach  to  it  from  its  inter-relations  with 
other  so-called  fundamental  doctrines.  The  bias  of  error 
on  any  single  point  touching  this  matter  may  thus  preju- 
dice a  fair  view  of  either  one  or  of  all  the  great  elements 
of  the  Christian  scheme.  It  is  the  very  decided,  and,  we 
must  believe,  the  very  fairly  reached  and  the  very  intel- 
ligent conviction  of  Unitarians,  that  the  supposed  ex- 
igencies of  the  Orthodox  system  are  to  the  full  as  con- 
straining a  reason  with  its  disciples  for  holding  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Deity  of  Christ,  as  is  the  force  of  direct 
argument  for  it  from  the  text  of  Scripture.  If  this  bias 
be  real,  it  must  needs  be  very  strong.  Orthodoxy,  there- 
fore, proclaims  that  the  Deity  of  Christ  enters  into  the 


METAPHYSICAL   AND   SCRIPTURAL  TRUTH.  109 

very  substance  of  the  Gospel,  and  Orthodoxy  commits 
itself  to  that  doctrine. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Deity  of  Christ  enters  into  the 
more  general  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  of  persons  in  the 
Godhead,  and  is,  indeed,  the  chief  element  in  this  doc- 
trine, as  the  process  necessary  for  developing  the  Deity 
of  Christ  requires  a  previous  recognition  of  a  possible 
complexity  in  the  Godhead.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
is,  that  in  the  one  God  are  united  three  distinct,  co-equal, 
and  co-eternal  persons,  revealed  to  us  by  the  titles  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  What  an  untold 
amount  of  thinking,  reasoning,  arguing,  asserting,  and 
denying  has  been  spent  upon  this  theme !  When  we 
regard  it  as  a  matter  of  mere  speculation,  in  dealing  with 
which  words  must  for  the  most  part  stand  in  place  of 
ideas,  we  may  be  impatient  that  in  this  short  life  of  man, 
where  his  zeal  and  strength  are  all  needed  for  great 
Christian  duties,  he  should  have  bestowed  so  much  of 
thought  and  interest  upon  a  metaphysical  abstraction. 
But  when  we  regard  the  issue  as  one  that  has  been 
raised  to  be  decided  by  a  most  careful,  thorough,  intel- 
ligent, and  reverential  interpretation  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, we  are  the  more  reconciled  to  the  spending  of  so 
much  study  upon  it,  because  of  the  possible  incidental 
benefits  resulting  to  our  Scriptural  knowledge  and  cul- 
ture. And  yet  once  more,  rising  to  a  still  higher  view, 
when  we  look  at  the  issue  here  raised  as  it  bears  directly 
or  indirectly  upon  the  whole  doctrinal  substance  of  reve- 
lation, our  impatience  yields,  —  we  become  more  than 
reconciled  to  the  discussion  as  it  offers  to  guide  us  to  its 
various  and  momentous  relations  to  all  Christian  truth. 
We  accept  the  subject,  as  one  alike  of  speculative,  Scrip- 
tural, and  practical  interest. 

As  we  enter  anew  upon  this  ancient  topic  of  acrimo- 
nious   strife,    of  ardent   controversy,   and  of  perplexed 
debate,  let  it  be  with  due  preparation  of  thought  and 
10 


110  MODE   OF  THE  DIVINE   EXISTENCE. 

feeling.  High  abstractions,  profound  speculations,  and 
themes  of  mystery  are  comprehended  in  this  discussion, 
as  well  as  the  simple  verities  which  have  a  solemn  in- 
terest for  the  unlearned,  who  wish  to  believe  as  Chris- 
tians. It  is  no  subject  for  our  presumption  to  deal  with, 
nor  for  our  dogmatism  to  decide.  If  we  choose  to  con- 
cern ourselves  with  a  question  as  to  the  mode  of  the 
Divine  existence,  or  if  we  feel  that  an  inquiry  on  this 
point  seriously  involves  the  clearness  and  the  correctness 
of  our  doctrinal  belief,  we  must  remember  that  the  sub- 
ject is  wholly  unlike  those  which  relate  to  our  own  char- 
acters and  experience  ;  so  that  our  familiar  methods  and 
processes,  and  certainly  our  bold  and  impatient  spirit  of 
curious  investigation,  will  no  longer  serve  us.  Men  will 
interest  themselves  with  questions  about  the  origin  of 
this  globe,  the  date  when  human  life  began  upon  it, 
and  the  time  appointed  for  its  dissolution.  Men  will 
even  discuss  and  argue  the  probabilities  as  to  whether 
the  other  orbs  of  heaven,  within  our  view,  are  occupied 
by  beings  in  any  respect  like  ourselves.  Very  slender 
are  our  grounds  for  the  adoption  of  theories,  and  very 
meagre  are  our  results  after  debating  such  questions. 
And  yet,  as  these  relate  to  matters  of  sense,  to  physical 
operations,  to  mathematical  calculations,  and  fall  within 
the  province  of  exact  science,  we  have  certain  resources 
for  dealing  with  them  with  considerable  satisfaction. 
We  can  hammer  out  from  the  earth's  rocky  breast  some 
of  her  secrets ;  we  can  put  to  the  test  the  question 
whether  the  fires  of  the  sun  are  wasting ;  we  can  push 
forth  the  telescopic  tube  and  dilate  with  our  lenses  the 
compass  of  the  planetary  orbs,  and  put  the  heavens  well- 
nigh  out  of  countenance  by  the  boldness  of  our  own  gaze, 
as  we  pronounce  upon  what  nutriment  of  fog,  or  flame, 
or  stone,  or  ice,  the  inhabitants  of  those  orbs  must  respec- 
tively subsist.  But  a  question  concerning  the  mode  of  the 
Divine  existence  is  remote  from  all  these,  and  all  other 


THE   TRINITARIAN   CONTROVERSY.  Ill 

similarly  profound  and  vast  questions.  By  searching 
we  cannot  find  out  God.  We  cannot  hope  that  any  of 
the  incomprehensibilities  which  invest  him  will  yield  to 
our  reasoning.  We  have  never  seen  it  affirmed,  we 
are  confident  it  never  can  be  proved,  that  the  effort  of 
faith  which  is  essential  to  a  conception  of  God  will  be 
one  whit  relieved  or  facilitated  by  conceiving  of  him 
under  the  form  of  a  Trinity.  The  vast  and  awful  solem- 
nity remains  still  to  confound  or  to  dazzle  us.  We  find  a 
warrant  for  intermeddling  with  this  loftiest  of  all  themes, 
— the  existence  of  God,  —  in  the  fact  that  revelation  ad- 
dresses it  to  our  faith  through  our  reverent  and  intelli- 
gent thought.  But  all  questions  as  to  the  mode  of  the 
Divine  existence  are  voluntarily  opened  by  us.  These 
are  not  forbidden,  and  certainly,  if  one  of  the  great  pur- 
poses of  revelation  was  to  disclose  to  us  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,  and  if  the  whole  scheme  of  Christian  truth 
centres  upon  that  doctrine,  it  becomes  as  legitimate,  in- 
deed as  importunate,  a  theme  of  thought  and  interest, 
and,  under  proper  conditions,  of  controversy,  as  any  that 
can  engage  our  minds. 

Let  us  understand,  too,  how  the  subject  before  us  has 
come  to  enter  into  controversy.  The  most  superficial 
reader  of  church  history  is  made  aware  that  the  contro- 
versy, instead  of  being  one  of  recent  origin,  has  followed 
down  the  fortunes  of  our  faith  from  a  very  early  age. 
He  learns,  also,  that  the  party  differences  and  strifes  which 
the  controversy  from  its  beginning  excited,  called  to- 
gether numerous  general  and  local  councils  of  Christian 
ministers,  were  brought  before  imperial  tribunals,  and 
disposed  of,  or  at  least  taken  cognizance  of,  by  civil 
edicts.  He  discovers  that  the  disputed  terms  of  the  con- 
troversy have  been  blazoned  on  the  banners  of  contend- 
ing armies,  and  have  been  authenticated,  not  only  by 
the  legitimate  processes  of  Scripture  criticism  and  fair 
argument,   but  by  the  ruder  methods  of  fines,  prisons, 


112  THE   DOCTRINE   OF   THE   TRINITY. 

banishments,  excommunications,  and  executions.  The 
popular  notion  among  the  uninformed  members  of  ortho- 
dox sects,  favored  often  by  the  uncandid  authorities  on 
which  the  ignorant  and  prejudiced  rely,  is,  that  the  plain 
doctrine  of  Scripture  is  Trinitarianism  ;  that  the  Saviour 
and  his  Apostles  taught  this  doctrine  and  founded  their 
churches  upon  it;  that  the  early  Fathers  and  all  other 
Christians  unanimously  believed  it;  that  no  question  for 
long  ages  attached  to  it ;  that  the  whole  Church  down  to 
quite  a  recent  time  agreed  upon  it ;  and  that  only  a  dar- 
ing heretic  here  and  there  has  ever  doubted  or  assailed 
the  doctrine.  The  Unitarian,  on  the  other  hand,  is  per- 
fectly satisfied  that  the  teaching  of  Scripture  is  in  com- 
plete opposition  to  Trinitarianism ;  that  violence  must 
be  done  to  the  text  in  order  to  support  it;  that  the  Apos- 
tles never  recognized,  never  even  heard  of  it;  that  such 
of  the  Fathers  as  in  their  confused  and  inconsistent 
teachings  give  it  more  or  less  of  their  countenance,  de- 
rived it  from  unscriptural  sources,  from  previous  philo- 
sophical fancies ;  that  the  doctrine  from  its  first  an- 
nouncement was  controverted,  and  that  it  is  itself  a 
heresy  whose  origin  and  whole  way  of  strife  are  thor- 
oughly known  to  us. 

We  select,  out  of  a  multitude  of  statements  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  lying  at  our  hand,  that  which 
is  given  in  the  Confession  of  Faith  adopted  by  the  New 
England  churches  in  1680,  as  follows :  — 

"  There  is  but  One  only  living  and  true  God.  In  the 
Unity  of  the  Godhead  there  be  Three  Persons,  of  one  sub- 
stance, power,  and  eternity :  God  the  Father,  God  the 
Son,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  "Which  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  the  foundation  of  all  our  communion  with 
God,  and  comfortable  dependence  upon  him." 

We  might  exhaust  all  our  space  in  giving  a  series  of 
statements  and  definitions  of  this  doctrine;  and  then  we 
might  occupy  twice  the  number  of  pages  in  simply  ar- 


UNINTELLIGIBLE   AND    INEXPRESSIBLE.  113 

ranging  the  various  modifications  of  conception  and  be- 
lief which  have  marked  the  chronological  history,  or  the 
symbolical  adoption,  or  the  heretical  aberrations  from 
any  one  of  the  several  orthodox  formulas  of  this  doctrine. 
A  volume  which  should  faithfully  present  the  abundant 
materials  of  that  nature  for  filling  it,  might  well  pass 
among  us  for  a  relic  rescued  from  Babel.  The  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  is  confessedly  incomprehensible,  and  many 
readers  of  the  controversies  about  it  must  feel  a  profound 
regret  that  it  was  not  allowed  from  the  first  to  be  inex- 
pressible likewise.  Indeed,  the  question  is  a  fair  one, 
Has  not  the  doctrine  really  proved  itself  to  be  inexpres- 
sible? It  is  this  great  variety  of  terms  and  forms  of 
speech  used  for  announcing  the  doctrine,  and  the  failure 
of  all  of  them  to  leave  an  intelligible  idea  in  the  mind, 
that  first  excites  the  anxious  distrust  of  many  persons  to 
whom  this  doctrine  is  presented  as  "the  foundation  of 
all  our  communion  with  God."  We  find  even  Calvin 
objecting  to  the  use  of  the  word  persons  for  defining  the 
distinctions  in  the  Godhead.  He  called  the  word  bar- 
barous ;  he  regretted  its  use ;  he  wished  that  some  other 
phraseology  might  be  substituted  for  announcing  the 
doctrinal  formula.  The  excellent  Dr.  Watts  called  the 
doctrine  of  "three  persons"  a  "strange  and  perplexing 
notion."  A  great  deal  of  ingenuity  has  been  exercised 
by  intelligent  but  bewildered  theologians  for  devising  a 
simpler,  a  more  intelligible,  a  less  self-contradictory,  and 
a  "more  Scriptural"  method  for  stating  the  doctrine. 
Evidently  some  of  the  best  minds  have  been  exercised 
upon  it  in  vain.  The  unanimous  decision  of  all  compe- 
tent teachers  who  hold  and  try  to  communicate  the  doc- 
trine now  is,  that  when  the  word  person  is  used  to  ex- 
press each  of  the  Three  in  the  One  God,  it  does  not  have 
the  same  sense  that  is  attached  to  it  in  any  one  or  in  all  of 
the  other  uses  of  the  word.  A  very  worthy  volunteer  in 
the  work  of  teaching  a  doctrine  of  which  he  could  make 
10* 


114  SCHEMES   OF  THE   TRINITY. 

no  intelligible  expression,  after  confounding  his  own 
thought,  fairly  gave  over  the  more  dignified  and  profes- 
sional speech  of  his  calling,  and  avowed  that  it  was 
"necessary  to  believe  in  Three  Someivhats  as  equally  di- 
vine." 

This  is  an  amazing  perplexity  to  be  put  at  the  very 
threshold  of  an  entrance  to  the  Christian  doctrines.  We 
cannot  but  feel  a  strong  persuasion  that,  if  all  the  bewil- 
dering and  confounding  speculations  which  have  attached 
to  this  doctrine  —  and  which,  while  they  have  embarrassed 
the  reception  of  it  in  any  intelligible  form,  have  also  es- 
tablished the  supposed  necessity  of  accepting  it  in  some 
form  —  could  be  wholly  set  aside,  Christians  would 
come  to  the  discussion  of  such  a  theory  in  a  far  more 
candid  state  of  mind.  They  are  now  prepossessed  and 
prejudiced  on  this  subject.  We  cannot  believe  for  one 
moment,  that,  if  it  were  left  to  this  age  and  the  present 
resources  of  speculative  conception  in  religious  philoso- 
phy to  fashion  forth  a  dogmatic  statement  concerning 
the  Divine  nature,  any  such  notion  as  Trinitarianism 
includes  would  find  acceptance,  even  if  it  should  find  a 
suggestion  or  an  advocate.  All  the  attempts  which  are 
made  to  state  the  doctrine  more  intelligibly  or  more  sim- 
ply have  resulted  in  such  refined  or  sublimated  meta- 
physics, that  we  almost  forget  the  mathematical  puzzle 
of  the  original  formula,  while  we  turn  back  to  it  as  for  a 
sort  of  relief. 

There  has  been,  however,  one  essential  step  of  real 
progress  secured  in  the  discussion  of  this  subject.  Those 
who  will  turn  over  the  voluminous  records  of  the  Trini- 
tarian controversy,  as  conducted  by  English  divines  in 
the  last  century,  will  find  it  doubly  and  trebly  perplexed 
beyond  its  own  intrinsic  difficulties,  if  that  be  possible, 
by  a  complicated  and  intricate  network  of  definitions, 
schemes,  and  secondary  issues.  If  any  one  should  feel 
compelled  to  trace  the  course  of  opinion  in  all  its  wind- 


FANCIFUL  INGENUITY  IN  ITS   STATEMENT.  115 

ings  and  relations  between  the  starting-point  of  doctrine 
as  an  accepted  creed  defined  it,  and  the  attempts  of  re- 
ligious teachers  to  give  it  an  exposition  conformed  to  the 
utterances  of  their  own  individual  views,  he  would  have 
need  to  bury  himself  in  heaps  of  antiquated  books.  As, 
for  instance,  after  mastering  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke's  modi- 
fication of  the  doctrinal  Trinity,  he  would  have  to  master 
Dr.  Waterland's  refutation  of  that  modification,  and  this 
would  be  a  specimen  task  of  a  work  which  would  occupy 
a  long  life.  But  as  this  sort  of  rubbish  has  accumulated 
in  masses  in  sight  of  which  heart  and  flesh  absolutely 
quail,  it  has  come  to  be  understood  that  henceforward 
no  one  is  expected  to  meddle  with  it.  He  would  be  a 
high  offender  who  should  venture  to  open  anew  the  spe- 
cific issues  of  the  modes  and  schemes  which  our  fathers 
felt  compelled  to  entertain.  Our  recent  discussions  have 
on  this  account  been  greatly  simplified,  and  will  become 
even  yet  more  simple  as  they  become  wholly  Scriptural. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  indeed  been  so  subli- 
mated and  refined,  and  so  reduced  in  the  rigidity  of  its 
old  technical  terms,  that  it  may  now  be  said  to  offer  it- 
self in  some  quite  inoffensive  and  unobjectionable  shapes 
to  that  large  number  of  persons  who  feel  bound  to  accept 
it  in  some  shape,  and  yet  are  aware  that  in  full  mental 
honesty  they  can  accept  it  only  in  the  least  dogmatic 
and  most  accommodated  shape.  Though  for  our  own 
part  we  can  connect  no  intelligible  idea  with  such  an 
assertion  as  Dr.  Bushnell  makes,  for  example,  when  he 
says  that  God  has  been  "  eternally  threeing-  himself,"  we 
can  recognize  the  fact  that  genius  and  fancy  and  irre- 
pressible restlessness  of  mind  are  determined  to  festoon 
and  array  a  dogma  whose  angular  sharpness  and  whose 
barrenness  of  look  would  offend.  If  we  could  only  find 
any  occasion  for  believing  a  Trinity  in  the  Godhead,  in 
any  form  of  the  dogma,  Archbishop  Whately  might 
largely  help  us  to  make  the  very  little  effort  which  is  all 


116  PERSONALITY   OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT. 

that  is  left  as  essential.  In  some  of  the  modern  shap- 
ings of  the  doctrine,  we  confess  that  there  is  no  reason 
for  rejecting  it  which  will  weigh  against  the  slightest 
good  reason  for  receiving  it.  But  that  slightest  reason 
for  receiving  it  is  the  very  thing  which  fails  us :  it  is 
wholly  lacking. 

We  have  said  that  the  chief  reason  for  asserting  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  that  it  may  include  or  cover 
the  doctrine  of  the  Deity  of  Christ.  Frankly,  and  with 
general  consent,  is  this  admission  yielded  by  Orthodox 
writers.  Professor  Stuart  says :  "  All  difficulties  in  re- 
spect to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  are  essentially  con- 
nected with  proving  or  disproving  the  divinity  [he  means 
the  Deity]  of  Christ."*  "When  this  [the  Deity  of 
Christ]  is  admitted  or  rejected,  no  possible  objection 
can  be  felt  to  admitting  or  rejecting  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity."  f  The  plain  inference  from  such  statements 
evidently  is,  that  the  Deity  of  a  third  personality  in  the 
Godhead  (the  Holy  Spirit)  is  affirmed  and  insisted  upon, 
in  order  to  secure  and  make  good  the  Deity  of  a  second 
personality  in  the  Godhead.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  admit- 
ted to  the  prerogative  of  a  distinct  personality  in  order  to 
facilitate  that  distribution  of  the  essence  of  the  Godhead 
which  will  assign  to  Jesus  Christ  the  rank  of  the  Su- 
preme. And  this  device  is  adopted,  because  into  some 
of  the  texts  which  are  needed  inferentially  to  confirm 
the  assumption  that  Christ  is  God,  the  Holy  Spirit  en- 
ters by  equally  distinct  mention. 

It  is  even  so.  There  is  no  other  reason  for  asserting 
the  separate  personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  except  as 
that  will  bear  upon  the  claim  for  Christ  of  the  underived 
and  self-subsisting  prerogative  of  Deity.  The  weakest 
point  in  all  the  arguments  in  support  or  defence  of  Trini- 
tarianism,  is  that  which  attempts  to  prove  from  Scripture 

*  Letters  to  Dr.  Charming,  3d  edition,  p.  45.  t  Ibid.,  p.  59. 


GOD   IS  A   SPIRIT.  117 

the  separate  personality  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Yet  weak  as 
this  point  in  such  arguments  always  is,  laboring  at  the 
very  start,  made  essential  by  an  indirect  instead  of  a  di- 
rect and  independent  necessity,  and  requiring  a  most  tor- 
tuous and  unsatisfactory  dealing  with  the  phraseology  of 
Scripture,  it  is  the  very  point  on  which  Orthodox  divines 
spend  the  least  of  their  strength,  as  if  conscious  of  their 
weakness.  The  personality  of  the  Spirit  is  expected  to 
come  in  by  indulgent  construction  after  the  divisibility 
of  the  Godhead  has  been  affirmed  for  the  sake  of  sharing 
its  attributes  between  Christ  and  the  Father.  So  ob- 
vious is  it  to  all  minds  not  prejudiced  by  a  dogma,  that 
the  term  Holy  Spirit,  wherever  it  is  used  in  the  Bible, 
may  always  have  its  whole  meaning  recognized  when  it 
is  regarded  as  expressing  the  agency  or  influence  of 
God's  spiritual  operations.  We  might  as  well  attempt 
to  claim  a  distinct  personality  for  the  Wisdom  of  God, 
or  the  Power  of  God,  or  the  Fear  of  God,  or  the  Love  of 
God,  as  to  claim  it  for  the  Spirit  of  God.  God  is  him- 
self a  Spirit  ;  that  is  the  very  loftiest  and  fullest  title  by 
which  the  Saviour  made  him  an  object  of  our  faith.  All 
the  agency  of  God  is  spiritual,  though  for  convenience 
of  distinction  we  generally  withdraw  that  epithet  from 
uses  relating  to  God's  agency  in  the  physical  world,  and 
confine  it  to  the  methods  of  his  operation  on  his  intelli- 
gent creation.  The  advocate  of  Trinitarianism  thinks 
that  he  visits  upon  us  a  perfectly  overwhelming  argu- 
ment, when  he  gathers  texts  from  the  Bible  to  prove  that 
Divine  attributes  of  Creation,  Omnipresence,  Wisdom, 
Might,  and  operative  energy  are  assigned  to  the  Spirit. 
It  would  be  strange  if  they  were  not  so  assigned.  We 
are  amazed  that  any  one  should  offer  these  manifest  in- 
ferences of  simple  truth,  the  conditions  which  constitute 
the  great  truth  that  "  God  is  a  Spirit,"  in  proof  of  the 
astounding  dogma  that  one  third  part  of  the  Godhead  is 
Spirit.     God  is  himself  a  Spirit.     Now  if  we  distinguish 


118      GROUNDS  FOR  REJECTING  THE  TRINITY. 

the  Spirit  as  a  divided  personality  in  the  Godhead,  what 
crowning  attribute  have  we  left  for  the  Father  ?  The 
device  would  seem  to  us  puerile,  if  it  did  not  appear 
monstrous,  which  would  distinguish,  not  the  agency,  but 
the  nature  of  God  by  a  division,  or  a  duplication,  of  his 
essence  into  God  the  Father  as  one  person,  and  God 
the  Spirit  as  another  person.  How  can  a  reader  of 
Scripture  fail  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  is  itself  but  one  of  many  terms  used  for  expressing 
the  operating,  penetrating,  and  sanctifying  energy  and 
influence  of  the  Supreme  Being  ?  If  Scripture,  in  def- 
erence to  the  straits  of  our  limited  power  of  intellectual 
conception,  gives  us  several  terms  for  defining  the  meth- 
ods and  the  attributes  of  the  One  Supreme,  shall  we 
seize  upon  them,  and,  instead  of  using  them  for  the  pur- 
pose for  which  they  are  given,  turn  them  back  upon  the 
Unity  of  the  Godhead,  to  confound  it  with  a  plurality  ? 
It  is  at  this  point,  of  course,  that  one  who  has  been 
educated  under  this  Trinitarian  dogma,  and  is  seeking 
to  test  its  truth,  or  one  who  is  brought  into  debate  with 
a  professed  believer  in  it,  will  begin  to  raise  the  question 
whether  the  Scriptures  teach,  or  the  Christian  scheme 
includes,  any  doctrine  of  a  Trinity  of  co-equal  and  co- 
eternal  Persons  in  the  One  God.  Though  the  doctrine 
is  advanced  chiefly  as  a  help  towards  the  proof  of  an- 
other doctrine  of  the  Deity  of  Christ,  we  object  to  the 
doctrine,  in  the  first  place,  on  grounds  wholly  distinct  from 
its  relation  to  that  article  of  the  Trinitarian  faith.  We 
object,  in  general,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  that  it  is 
an  invention  of  the  human  mind,  for  which  the  Scriptures 
afford  no  warrant ;  and  that  its  prominent  effect  is  to  in- 
troduce into  the  system  of  truths  taught  in  the  Scrip- 
tures an  extraneous,  artificial,  and  perplexing  dogma, 
wholly  inconsistent  with,  utterly  unlike  to,  the  acknowl- 
edged and  accepted  doctrines  of  Scripture.  We  do  not 
object,  as  is  often  charged  upon  us,  that  the  doctrine 


THE   TRINITY   NOT  A  MYSTERY.  119 

involves  a  mystery.  On  the  contrary,  we  object  that  the 
doctrine  when  urged  upon  us  as  a  mystery  misuses  and 
perverts  the  word  mystery,  and  avails  itself  of  the  ac- 
knowledged and  allowed  credibility  of  what  the  word 
mystery  properly  signifies,  to  propose  to  us  something 
quite  unlike  a  mystery;  namely,  a  statement  that  is  ab- 
surd, so  far  as  it  is  intelligible,  and  that  is  inconsistent 
in  the  very  terms  which  it  brings  together  for  making  its 
proposition.  We  accept  all  such  religious  truths  as  can 
fairly  be  covered  by  the  word  mystery.  We  live  relig- 
iously upon  such  truths  ;  they  are  the  nutriment  of  our 
spirits,  —  of  infinitely  larger  account  to  us  than  anything 
we  can  learn  or  understand.  We  are  made  familiar,  by 
every  moment's  exercise  of  close  thought,  with  the  neces- 
sity of  accepting  mysteries,  and  we  know  very  well  what 
a  sensation  and  sentiment  they  send  down  into  the  in- 
nermost chambers  of  our  being.  But  we  are  conscious 
of  feeling  quite  a  different  sensation  and  sentiment  when 
this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  proposed  to  us  under  the 
covert  of  a  mystery.  Quite  another  quality  in  it  than 
that  of  its  mysterious  character  at  once  suggests  itself 
to  us.  Its  utter  absurdity,  its  attempt  to  say  something 
which  it  fails  to  say  intelligibly,  simply  because  it  can- 
not say  it  truly,  is  the  first  painful  consciousness  attach- 
ing to  the  doctrine.  If  the  doctrine  be  true,  then  it  is 
the  only  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  which  causes  the  same 
sort  of  puzzling,  confounding,  bewildering  effect  on  the 
mind  that  seeks  to  entertain  it.  It  sets  us  into  the  frame 
into  which  we  fall  when  any  one  proposes  to  us  an  enig- 
ma, or  a  conundrum.  It  lays  at  the  very  threshold  of 
the  Christian  faith  an  obstacle  at  which  we  stumble. 
It  requires  of  us  a  summoning  of  resources,  or  a  conces- 
sion, a  yielding  up,  of  our  natural  desire  for  intelligent 
apprehension,  as  if  to  be  addressed  by  some  profound 
truth,  when  in  fact  we  are  only  bewildered.  The  state 
of  mind  into  which  we  should  be  driven  by  an  attempt 


120  THE   ONENESS   OF   GOD. 

to  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  fundamental  to 
the  Gospel,  would  be  of  no  service  to  us  in  dealing  with 
the  real  doctrines  of  the  Gospel.  The  doctrine  is  not 
homogeneous  with  the  contents  of  revelation  ;  it  is  un- 
evangelical  and  anti-evangelical  in  all  its  characteristic 
elements.  Just  where  we  need  the  clearest  exercise  of 
our  thoughts,  and  wish  to  accommodate  our  ideas  to  our 
theme,  and  to  engage  the  orderly  action  of  all  our  facul- 
ties, we  are  beclouded  and  staggered,  and  thrown  into  a 
maze.  Has  not  our  whole  theology  been  made  to  suffer, 
by  thus  taking  its  start  from  a  metaphysical  subtilty 
which  confuses  the  mind,  instead  of  from  one  august 
truth  which  lifts  and  solemnizes  the  spirit? 

How  much  of  sublime  and  penetrating  power  did 
the  Hebrew  faith  carry  with  it  in  the  announcement, 
"  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  thy  God  is  One  Lord ! " 
Would  we  as  Christians  sacrifice  anything  of  this  ma- 
jestic utterance  by  substituting  for  it,  "  Hear,  O  Chris- 
tian, the  Lord  thy  God  is  one  God  in  a  Trinity  of  Per- 
sons n  ?  The  Trinitarian,  however,  assures  us  that 
his  belief  of  a  triplicate  personality  in  the  Godhead  does 
not  impair  his  belief  in  the  Divine  Unity.  How  inop- 
erative then  must  be  his  Trinitarian  belief,  unless,  as  is 
probably  the  case,  the  idea  which  he  has  in  his  mind 
fails  to  find  expression  in  any  phraseology  that  can  give 
a  verbal  announcement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 
The  purest  attraction,  the  most  spiritual  warrant  of  re- 
vealed religion,  is  the  oneness  of  God.  It  is  by  that  dis- 
tinction that  revealed  religion  stands  loftily  and  simply 
elevated  above  all  earth-born  religions.  Yet  this  high 
distinction  is  at  once  impaired,  and  in  some  measure 
neutralized,  by  a  doctrine  of  tri-personality  in  unity. 
Long  use  has  accustomed  us  to  the  assertion  of  this 
doctrine  in  words,  but  none  the  less  is  it  chargeable  with 
an  influence  prejudicial  to  the  best  exercise  of  our  facul- 
ties upon  the  great  truths  of  Gospel  revelation.     A  ques- 


NO  SCRIPTURAL  FORMULA  OF  THE  TRINITY.     121 

tion  for  which  this  age  is  fully  ready,  instructed  as  it  has 
been  by  so  much  experience  in  the  past,  is  this,  and  it  is 
a  question  "which  earnestly  addresses  itself  to  earnest 
persons  in  all  communions: — Cannot  full  justice  be 
done  to  the  -Christian  scheme,  and  to  the  orderly  con- 
nection of  every  one  of  its  dependent  truths,  without  any 
use  of  this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity?  Do  we  need  it? 
Can  we  not  dispense  with  it,  and  yet  be  Christian  be- 
lievers ? 

Having  thus  begun  the  statement  of  our  objections  to 
this  scholastic  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  by  impugning  it 
as  unintelligible  and  confounding,  not  enlightening  or 
solemnizing,  we  are  led  on  through  a  series  of  valid  and 
strengthening  reasons,  which  amount,  in  our  own  mind, 
to  an  unanswerable  refutation  of  it. 

Though  Christians  have  insisted  upon  the  fundamen- 
tal character  of  this  doctrine,  they  find  it  utterly  impos- 
sible to  state  it  in  the  language  of  Scripture.  A  human 
formula  is  necessarily  the  vehicle  for  its  expression. 
Though  the  Scriptures,  as  we  often  affirm,  have  a  pecu- 
liar directness  and  simplicity  of  phrase,  and  excel  all 
other  forms  of  literature  in  the  conciseness  and  vigor 
with  which  they  express  truths  and  precepts,  they  never- 
theless fail  to  furnish  one  single  sentence  which  can  be 
used  in  a  creed  to  announce  the  Trinity.  Yes,  this  so- 
called  primary  and  all-essential  article  of  the  Christian 
faith,  —  "the  foundation  of  all  our  communion  with 
God,"  —  cannot  be  uttered  in  any  Divine  oracle,  but 
must  look  to  uninspired  men  for  an  expression.  No  an- 
nouncement of  it  can  be  quoted  from  the  lips  of  prophet 
or  apostle,  or  from  Him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake. 
A  piecemeal  selection  of  the  elements  which  are  to  be 
wrought  up  into  the  doctrine  must  be  gathered  from  iso- 
lated sentences  and  phrases  of  the  Bible,  and  even  then 
one  of  the  most  familiar  and  well-defined  words  of  our 
language  —  the  word  person,  which  is  already  appropri- 
11 


122  THE   BAPTISMAL  FORMULA. 

ated  past  changing  to  mark  the  separate  individuality  of 
one  complete  being  —  must  be  perverted  to  a  wholly  new 
use,  while  they  who  thus  pervert  it  profess  to  dislike  it, 
and  aver  that  it  wholly  fails  to  convey  the  idea  that  is 
in  their  minds.  Are  they  sure  that  there  is  any  real, 
well-developed  idea  in  their  minds,  seeing  that  they  can- 
not express  it  without  perverting  language,  and  even 
then  are  forced  to  confess  that  they  fail  to  express  it. 
Are  they  sure,  too,  that  the  idea  which  they  wish  to  ex- 
press is  one  received  from  the  Scriptures  ?  Does  Scrip- 
ture bid  us  believe,  as  a  fundamental,  a  doctrine  which 
Scripture  itself  does  not  announce  in  its  own  "  form  of 
sound  words  "  ? 

Again,  a  fundamental  doctrine  ought  to  be  emphati- 
cally announced  and  constantly  reiterated.  Now  all 
candid  persons  must  admit  that  no  stress,  no  promi- 
nence, no  directness  or  earnestness  of  statement,  is  made 
of  this  doctrine  in  the  Scriptures  corresponding  to  the 
emphatic  and  pre-eminent  place  assigned  to  it  in  all  Or- 
thodox creeds.  Considering  too  with  what  strenuous 
positiveness  and  reiteration  the  Unity  of  God  is  there 
asserted,  ought  there  not  to  have  been  a  balancing  of 
this  assertion  by  as  emphatic  a  proclamation  of  the 
Trinity  ?  This  triplicity  of  constitution  of  the  Godhead 
was  certainly  a  new  doctrine  to  the  world.  It  was  new 
to  the  Jews.  It  demanded,  therefore,  at  least  one  an- 
nouncement from  each  Apostle,  and  each  Evangelist,  in 
terms  as  clear  and  strong  as  the  resources  and  capacities 
of  human  language  will  admit.  What  is  most  remark- 
able under  this  head  of  objection  is  the  fact,  that,  on  the 
occasions  upon  which  we  should  have  looked  for  the 
most  distinct  statement  of  the  doctrine,  it  was  held  back. 
The  baptismal  formula,  which,  unlike  as  it  is  to  the  for- 
mula of  the  creed,  does  gather  together  the  three  compo- 
nent elements  of  the  Trinity,  stops  far  short  of  the  asser- 
tion that  three  personalities  are  mentioned,  —  and  that 


THE   APOSTOLIC   PREACHING.  123 

such  three  make  up  the  one  God  of  the  Gospel.  The 
most  natural  and  unprejudiced  construction  of  that  bap- 
tismal formula  views  it  as  announcing  a  Gospel  message 
from  God  the  Father,  through  Christ  his  beloved  Son, 
attested  by  spiritual  evidences  from  God's  Holy  Spirit. 
What  an  opportunity  was  there  here  for  the  statement  — 
what  an  imperative  demand  was  there  for  the  statement, 
if  fundamentally  true,  and  of  paramount  importance  — 
of  the  full  doctrine  of  the  Trinity !  But  it  is  not  here ! 
After  the  crucifixion,  the  resurrection,  and  the  ascen- 
sion of  Jesus,  after  the  miraculous  illumination  of  the 
Apostles  on  the  Feast  of  Pentecost,  one  signal  event 
occurred.  The  religion  which,  with  its  author,  the  Jew- 
ish rulers  supposed  had  been  committed  to  a  hopeless 
tomb,  was  resuscitated.  Instead  of  having  heard  the 
last  of  it,  the  world  was  now  to  begin  to  listen  to  a  new 
and  unceasing  proclamation  of  it.  The  opportunity  for 
making  its  first  re-announcement  came  to  Peter  after  an 
astounding  manifestation  of  Divine  power.  And  what 
an  opportunity  there  was,  what  a  pressing  and  emergent 
necessity  and  demand  there  was,  for  proclaiming  the 
doctrine  which  Christians  now  make  fundamental  in 
their  creed !  We  should  look  and  listen  to  hear  Peter 
announcing  to  the  Jewish  rulers  that  in  the  person  of 
Jesus  Christ  they  had  rejected  and  condemned  one  who 
shared  the  underived  attributes  of  their  own  Jehovah. 
But  no !  What  says  he  ?  This :  —  "Ye  men  of  Israel, 
hear  these  words  :  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  man  approved  of 
God  among  you  by  miracles  and  wonders  and  signs, 
which  God  did  by  him  in  the  midst  of  you,  as  ye  your- 
selves also  know ;  him,  being  delivered  by  the  determinate 
counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God,  ye  have  taken,  and 
by  wicked  hands  have  crucified  and  slain :  whom  God 
hath  raised  up."  (Acts  ii.  22-24.)  And  on  how  many 
other  occasions  through  Judaea,  Asia  Minor,  and  at 
Rome,  on  the  first  promulgation  of  our  faith,  was  it  in- 


124  DOUBTFUL  PROOF-TEXTS. 

cumbent  on  its  preachers  to  have  put  foremost  its  foun- 
dation doctrine!  But  if  the  Trinity  be  such  a  doctrine, 
they  did  not  make  one  single  statement  of  it  which  will 
serve  the  use  of  the  creed.  And  now  what  can  be  of- 
fered in  frankness,  and  in  the  thorough  simplicity  and 
ingenuousness  of  true  candor,  to  meet  the  force  of  this 
objection  ? 

Another  fact  most  significant  of  the  unscriptural  char- 
acter of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is,  that  the  texts 
which  are  quoted  to  support  it  are  peculiarly  embar- 
rassed with  doubts  and  questions  as  to  authenticity,  ex- 
actness of  rendering,  and  signification.  The  three  prom- 
inent proof-texts  most  likely  to  be  first  adduced,  and 
which  promise  at  first  sight  to  be  most  available,  are  the 
least  reliable.  Of  these  three  favorite  passages  with 
Trinitarians,  on  which  so  much  scholarship  and  inge- 
nious reasoning  and  pleading  have  been  expended,  the 
foremost  one  is  that  in  1  John  v.  7.  This  text  comes 
nearest  of  any  in  the  Bible  to  a  statement  of  the  Trini- 
tarian formula,  though  still  falling  short  of  the  state- 
ment by  all  the  distance  of  the  difference  between  Three 
agreeing  in  One,  and  Three  being  One.  Yet  this  text 
is  now  discredited  as  wholly  without  authority,  as  a  cor- 
ruption, an  interpolation,  foisted  into  the  record.  Every 
Christian  scholar,  of  whatever  denomination,  competent 
to  pass  an  instructed  opinion  on  the  matter,  admits  that 
St.  John  did  not  write  that  sentence,  and  that  the  words 
were  most  unwarrantably  introduced  into  a  manuscript 
written  some  centuries  after  the  Apostolic  age,  the 
crowning  proof  of  the  fact  being  that  no  one  of  the  Fa- 
thers quotes  the  text.  Now  let  us  at  least  have  the 
benefit  of  this  allowance,  —  that  the  only  sentence  which 
is  acknowledged  to  be  spurious  in  the  New  Testament  as 
we  read  it,  was  introduced  and  is  retained  for  the  sake 
of  its  supposed  announcement  and  support  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the   Trinity.     That  text  is  to  us  a  type  of  the 


DOUBTFUL   PROOF-TEXTS.  125 

unscripttiral  origin  and  the  unscriptural  character  of  the 
doctrine. 

The  second  of  these  favorite  Trinitarian  proof-texts  is 
1  Timothy  iii.  16 :  "  Great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness : 
God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh,"  &c.  As  the  passage 
stands,  it  neither  presents  the  slightest  embarrassment  to 
the  Unitarian,  nor  affords  the  slightest  support  to  Trini- 
tarianism.  But  with  the  gloss  and  the  forced  construc- 
tion put  upon  the  passage,  the  word  mystery  is  interpret- 
ed as  signifying,  not  a  disclosure  of  something  before 
concealed  or  unknown,  but  as  implying  an  announce- 
ment of  an  occult  and  impenetrable  secret;  and  the  word 
godliness,  which  means  simply  piety,  is  regarded  as  des- 
ignating the  Godhead,  or  the  mode  of  the  Divine  Exist- 
ence. Our  readers  are  probably  for  the  most  part  well 
informed  as  to  the  question  of  scholarly  criticism  opened 
on  the  text,  whether  a  very  ancient  Greek  manuscript  has 
the  character  o  or  o,  and  whether,  as  a  consequence,  we 
should  read  in  the  English,  "  Which  was  manifest  in  the 
flesh,"  or  "God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh."  As  the  Uni- 
tarian may  claim,  on  grounds  of  criticism,  that  the  pas- 
sage should  read,  "Great  is  that  marvel  of  piety  which 
was  manifested  in  the  flesh,"  so  also  the  Unitarian  may 
consent  to  withdraw  all  such  criticism  from  the  text, 
and  read  it  as  others  read  it,  while  he  asks,  with  some 
considerable  earnestness,  what  shadow  of  argument  can 
be  drawn  from  it  in  support  of  the  Trinity.  Are  Unita- 
rians to  be  forbidden  to  believe  that  "  God  was  manifested 
in  the  flesh,"  or  that  Christ  was  a  marvellous  exhibition 
of  piety  ?  * 

*  Professor  Stuart,  in  the  Biblical  Repository,  1832,  p.  79,  says  :  "I  cannot 
feel  that  the  contest  on  the  subject  of  the  reading  can  profit  one  side  so  much, 
or  harm  the  other  so  much,  as  disputants  respecting  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity have  supposed.  Whoever  attentively  studies  John  xvii.  20-2G,  1  John 
i.  3,  ii.  5,  iv.  15,  16,  and  other  passages  of  the  like  tenor,  will  see  that  'God 
might  be  manifest'  in  the  person  of  Christ,  without  the  necessary  implication 
of  the  proper  divinity  [Deity]  of  the  Saviour ;  at  least,  that  the  phraseology 
11* 


126  INGENUITY  IN  TEXT-HUNTING. 

The  third  of  these  favorite  Trinitarian  proof-texts  is 
Acts  xx.  28 :  "  Feed  the  Church  of  God,  which  he  hath 
purchased  with  his  own  blood."  The  question  raised  by 
variations  in  manuscripts,  and  other  sources  of  critical  in- 
formation, is  whether  we  should  read  "the  Church  of 
God  "  or  "the  Church  of  the  Lord."  Our  aim  here  is  not 
to  present  the  merits  on  either  side  of  the  results  which 
criticism  reaches  on  these  texts,  but  simply  to  show  that 
the  passages  which  Trinitarians  would  be  most  likely  to 
quote  are  the  very  ones  which  are  most  embarrassed  or 
dubious  in  their  authority  or  their  signification.  Pro- 
fessor Samuel  Davidson,  an  Orthodox  critic  whose  con- 
clusions are  among  the  most  recent  ones  which  have 
been  offered  to  scholars,  after  a  most  candid  arbitration 
between  the  disputed  words  in  the  Greek  which  give 
the  two  renderings,  decides  strongly  in  favor  of  "the 
Church  of  the  Lord."  * 

•But  what  a  dreary  and  repelling  task  it  is  to  go  over 
the  New  Testament,  or  the  whole  Bible,  to  hunt  out 
words,  phrases,  and  sentences  that  may  constructively 
or  inferentially  be  turned  to  the  support  of  a  doctrine 
which  ought  to  lie  patent  on  the  page.  It  would  seem 
as  if  Trinitarians  had  reconciled  themselves  to  the  con- 
dition, that  the  only  consistent  way  in  which  Scripture 
could  convey  to  us  such  an  enigmatical  and  puzzling 
doctrine,  was  by  a  method  which  should  engage  the 
most  tortuous,  adroit,  and  mazy  ingenuity  of  the  human 
faculties  in  seeking  for  results  that  must  partake  of  the 
character  of  the  process  for  reaching  them.  Roman 
Catholic  critics  acknowledge  manfully,  as  did  Dr.  New- 

of  Scripture  does  admit  of  other  constructions  besides  this ;  and  other  ones, 
moreover,  which  are  not  forced." 

*  Treatise  on  Biblical  Criticism,  Vol.  II.  pp.  441  -  448.  We  may  add, 
that  Dr.  Davidson,  though  a  Trinitarian,  is  as  decided  in  his  rejection  of 
1  John  v.  7,  as  "spurious,"  and  in  his  accordance  with  the  critical  judgment 
which  reads  1  Tim.  iii.  16,  "Great  is  that  mystery  of  godliness  which  was 
manifested  in  the  flesh,"  &c. 


TRINITARIAN  USE   OP  THE  BIBLE.  127 

man  while  he  was  yet  an  Oxford  divine,  that  the  Trinity 
is  not  a  Bible  doctrine,  but  a  Church  doctrine,  and  that 
our  knowledge  and  recognition  of  it  and  its  authority 
rest  for  us  on  the  same  basis  as  does  the  substitution  of 
the  Christian  Sunday  for  the  Jewish  Sabbath.  And  if 
the  method  by  which  Trinitarians  hunt  through  the 
Bible  for  intimations  and  implications  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  be  a  repulsive  one,  not  the  less  uninviting  is 
the  task  of  answering  all  such  arguments  by  a  similar 
process.  Since  the  doctrine  gained  currency  in  the 
world,  and  found  a  positive  statement  in  many  creeds, 
the  Scriptures  have  been  translated  into  the  vernacular 
languages  of  Christendom  under  the  bias  of  a  Trinita- 
rian belief.  The  present  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who 
ought  to  be  the  highest  of  human  authorities,  speaks, 
in  his  discourse  on  Apostolic  Preaching,  of  "the  many 
passages  of  Scripture  which  have  suffered  by  the  general 
bias  of  the  age  in  which  our  translation  was  made,"  — 
the  bias  of  Calvinism.  Those  who  have  argued  for  the 
Trinity,  having  started  with  a  bias,  helped  by  their  in- 
genuity and  guided  by  their  fancy,  have,  with  a  vast 
deal  of  pains,  gone  through  the  whole  Bible,  trying  to 
see  how  many  intimations  of  this  doctrine  they  could 
cull  out.  There  has  been  an  amazing  amount  of  trifling 
exercised  in  this  direction.  Some  who  have  ridiculed 
or  censured  the  follies  of  Rabbinical  and  allegorical 
interpretation,  or  the  puerilities  of  the  Cabala,  have 
rivalled  these  follies  in  their  attempts  to  find  hints  of 
the  Trinity  in  sentences  wThose  writers  evidently  never 
dreamed  of  the  doctrine.  Thus  the  use  of  the  Hebrew 
plural  in  the  word  (Elohim)  for  God,  and  the  use  of  the 
plural  pronoun  when  "  God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in  our 
own  image,"  modes  of  speech  used  to  denote  majesty  or 
sovereignty,  are  urged  in  proof  of  a  companionship  in  the 
Deity.  Sentences  are  quoted  asserting  that  no  man 
hath  seen  or  can  see  God,  and  are  compared  with  other 


128  SCRIPTURE  DOCTRINE   OF  THE   TRINITY. 

sentences  which  speak  of  manifestations  of  God  to  the 
patriarchs  and  others  ;  and  the  conclusion  is  drawn,  that 
the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament  was  the  revealing 
Son,  not  the  Father.  Yet  even  then  the  chain  of  in- 
tended proofs  breaks  at  one  link,  while  another  link  is  in 
the  welding ;  for  if  a  manifestation  of  one  person  in  the 
Trinity  was  impossible,  how  could  there  be  a  manifesta- 
tion of  another  person  in  it?  Again,  the  assertion  is 
quoted  as  from  God,  that  he  "  will  not  give  his  glory  to 
another,"  and  then  an  argument  is  raised  to  show  that 
the  honors  of  God  are  assigned  to  Christ ;  while  the  in- 
ference follows  that  Christ  is  God. 

We  have  no  heart  for  going  through  this  unnatural, 
this  offensive  task  of  tracing  the  windings  of  this  textual 
ingenuity,  or  of  answering  its  characteristic  results.  The 
process  has  no  natural  limitations  or  rules,  because  it 
has  no  reasonable  basis,  no  first  grounds.  It  is  all  a 
forced  work,  and  fancy  will  make  more  or  less  of  it  ac- 
cording as  it  is  pursued  by  those  who  have  more  or  less 
of  fancy,  —  fancy,  however,  of  a  very  inferior  sort. 

For  we  have  to  object  once  more,  that  the  Scriptures 
bear  a  positive  testimony  against  this  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  by  insisting  upon  the  absolute  Unity  of  God. 
Trinitarians  think  that  they  recognize  the  force  of  these 
reiterated  and  emphatic  assertions  of  Scripture  by  after- 
wards gathering  up  into  one  God  those  whom  they  have 
made  three  divine  persons.  But  as  the  analysis  was 
forced,  the  synthesis  must  be  strained.  As  the  ingenuity 
of  the  human  mind  could  alone  devise  the  triplicate  dis- 
tinction, the  same  ingenuity  has  to  nullify  its  own  work 
to  construct  the  Unity.  Trinitarians  do  indeed  assure  us 
that  there  is  no  incongruity,  nothing  inconceivable,  in 
the  essential  substance  of  their  doctrinal  statement.  But 
we  must  be  judges  as  to  that  matter,  certainly  so  far  as 
our  own  minds  are  concerned.  Our  minds  assure  us  that 
violence  must  be  done  to  the  most  explicit  statements  of 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  TRINITARIANISM.  129 

every  page  of  Scripture,  before  it  can  be  made  to  yield 
to  us  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

We  object,  finally,  to  this  doctrine,  that  we  know  its 
origin  to  have  been,  not  in  the  Scriptures,  but  outside  of 
them.  It  was  the  Greek  Philosophy  of  Alexandria,  and 
not  the  Hebrew  or  Christian  Theology  of  Jerusalem,  that 
gave  birth  to  this  doctrine.  We  can  trace  its  fount,  its 
spring,  its  incomings.  There  is  no  historical  fact  more 
fully  supported  than  that  of  the  addiction  of  the  Church 
Fathers  to  the  study  of  the  Greek  Philosophy;  they 
loved  it,  they  fondly  pursued  it,  they  were  infected  by  it, 
their  speculations  were  influenced  by  it,  their  Christian 
faith  received  intermixture  from  it.  Dr.  Caesar  Morgan 
acknowledges  this  fact  most  candidly,  though  he  pursues 
a  critical  examination  of  all  the  passages  in  Plato  which 
are  thought  to  contain  references  to  an  ante- Christian 
Trinity,  for  the  sake  of  proving  that  the  Fathers  did  not 
get  the  doctrine  from  the  philosopher.  But  the  argu- 
ment which  he  assails  does  not  yield  to  his  assault  upon 
it.  We  might  as  well  dispute  whether  an  ancient  trage- 
dy, whose  catastrophe  turns  on  Fate,  were  of  Grecian  or 
Jewish  origin,  as  debate  the  issue  whether  a  theosophical 
fiction  concerning  the  Godhead,  which  involves  the  most 
acute  subtilty  of  philosophy,  sprang  from  the  Abrahamic 
faith  or  from  Hellenic  Gnosticism.  The  history  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  makes  to  us  an  evident  display 
of  a  development,  an  amplification  and  steady  augmen- 
tation, from  a  germ  which  was  forced  into  an  artificial 
growth.  It  was  an  evolved  doctrine  which  was  con- 
stantly seeking  to  define  itself,  which  was  never  at  rest, 
and  which  never  has  been  at  rest  under  any  of  the  defi- 
nitions which  it  has  found  for  itself.  A  comparison  of 
the  three  old  creeds,  the  so-called  Apostles',  the  Nicene, 
and  the  Athanasian,  with  a  reference  to  their  dates,  will 
unmistakably  reveal  of  what  processes  and  elements  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  product. 


130  NATURE  AND   RANK   OF  CHRIST. 

We  return  now  to  that  great  doctrine  of  controverted 
theology,  the  Deity  of  Christ,  to  maintain  which,  as  we 
have  said,  the  doctrine  of  a  Trinity  of  Persons  in  the 
Unity  of  the  Godhead  is  so  strenuously  asserted  in  Or- 
thodox creeds.  Very  many  Trinitarians  have  candidly 
acknowledged  the  force  of  one  or  all  of  the  objections 
which  have  just  been  hinted  at.  They  allow  that  the 
Trinitarian  scheme  is  burdened  with  the  most  serious 
perplexities  to  the  understanding,  that  it  is  not  simply  a 
mystery,  like  some  of  the  other  tenets  of  their  faith,  but 
a  confounding  and  puzzling  enigma,  teasing  their  minds, 
rather  than  yielding  them  an  instructive  idea, — straining 
their  comprehension  instead  of  enlightening  it.  And  yet 
those  who  most  candidly  make  this  allowance  insist,  with 
their  fellow-believers,  upon  the  vital  truth  and  importance 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  involving  the  essential 
doctrine  of  the  Deity  of  Christ.  This  latter  doctrine 
then  presents  itself  to  us  as  really  the  primary  rudiment 
of  a  scheme  of  which,  in  other  aspects,  it  claims  to  be 
only  one  of  the  conditions  and  consequences.  A  Trinity 
is  insisted  upon  in  order  that  it  may  include  the  Deity 
of  Christ,  and  then  the  Deity  of  Christ  is  affirmed  as  an 
element  of  the  Trinity.  We  do  not  err  in  saying  that 
the  doctrine  now  before  us  is  charged  with  the  double 
obligation  of  sustaining  its  own  truth,  and  also  that  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  by  the  positive  authority  of 
the  Scriptures.  Orthodoxy  has  a  dogma  on  this  point, 
but  TJnitarianism  has  no  dogma,  except  in  the  quality  of 
denying  a  dogma.  Let  the  issue  be  fairly  understood. 
The  question  is  not  whether  the  Scriptures  do  or  do  not 
assign  to  Jesus  Christ  an  exalted  and  mysterious  nature 
and  range  of  being,  which  lift  him  above  the  sphere  of 
humanity.  The  question  is  not  whether  from  what  is 
revealed  of  the  Saviour  we  can  fashion  a  full  and  satis- 
factory theory,  which  will  make  him  to  us  a  perfectly  in- 
telligible and  well-defined  being,  holding  a  fixed  place 


CHRIST  DEPENDENT  UPON   GOD.  131 

on  the  scale  between  man  and  God.  But  the  question 
is  this :  Do  all  the  offices  and  functions  and  honors  as- 
signed to  Jesus  Christ  exhibit  him  as  undistinguishable 
from  God  in  time  and  essence  and  underived  existence, 
and  in  self-centred,  inherent  qualities  ?  Is  he,  or  is  he  not, 
presented  to  us  as  a  fractional  part  of  the  Godhead,  —  the 
object,  not  the  medium,  of  prayer,  —  the  source,  not  the 
agent,  of  redemption,  —  the  substitute,  not  the  repre- 
sentative, of  Jehovah,  —  as  the  occupant  of  heaven's  high 
throne,  not  as  seated  "  by  the  right  hand "  of  the  Su- 
preme ?  We  are  not  to  be  driven,  as  to  a  sole  alternative, 
to  the  affirming  that  Christ  was  a  man,  because  he  was  not 
God,  nor  to  the  holding  ourselves  bound  to  show  what  he 
was  less  than  God,  nor  yet  to  the  assigning  him  a  sphere 
of  his  own  distinct  at  every  point  from  that  of  Deity,  be- 
cause we  say  that  the  New  Testament  presents  him  as 
receiving  everything  from  the  Father.  What  that  every- 
thing includes ',  it  would  be  presumptuous  in  us  to  define  ; 
but  it  is  not  presumptuous  in  us  to  say  that  it  excludes 
underived  prerogatives.  There  is  indeed  large  room  for 
choice  amid  the  range  of  speculative  opinions  which 
Unitarianism  has  covered  on  this  point,  in  seeking  to 
find  a  substitute  for  the  Trinitarian  opinion.  The  office 
which  we  have  assigned  to  ourselves  in  this  review  of 
the  substantial  issues  of  a  protracted  controversy,  does 
not  require  an  elaborate  and  exhaustive  statement  of 
Unitarian  views  on  this  point.  We  have  but  to  present 
the  antagonistic  positions  of  the  parties  in  this  contro- 
versy. 

If  there  are  two  connected  truths  taught  with  emphatic 
and  reiterated  distinctness  in  the  New  Testament, —  or 
rather  we  should  say,  if  there  are  two  such  truths  taken 
for  granted  there,  —  they  are  that  of  the  sole  and  simple 
unity  of  God  the  Father,  and  that  of  the  derived  and 
dependent  relation  to  him  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  order  to 
secure  distinctness  and  clearness  of  thought  upon  Scrip- 


132  GOD   REVEALED   IN  CHRIST. 

ture  doctrine,  we  must  subordinate  the  Son  to  the  Fa- 
ther, and  having  done  this  to  take  our  first  step  in  Chris- 
tian faith,  we  cannot  complete  our  progress  in  that  faith 
by  confounding  the  Son  with  the  Father.  We  must 
distinguish  between  that  being  who  appeared  in  Judaea 
as  a  messenger  from  God,  and  the  God  whose  messen- 
ger he  was.  The  office  of  Christ  in  warming  and 
clothing  and  making  welcome  to  us  what  otherwise 
would  have  been  a  cold  and  naked  and  distant  doctrine 
of  Deism,  appears  to  us  exceedingly  unlike  what  it  is 
represented  to  have  been  by  the  excellent  Dr.  Arnold. 
Often,  and  most  approvingly,  triumphantly  indeed,  has 
the  following  remark  of  his  been  quoted :  — 

"  While  I  am  most  ready  to  allow  the  provoking  and  most  ill- 
judged  language  in  which  the  truth  as  I  hold  it  to  be  respecting 
God  has  been  expressed  by  Trinitarians,  so,  on  the  other  hand, 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Unitarians  have  deceived  themselves 
by  fancying  that  they  could  understand  the  notion  of  one  God 
any  better  than  that  of  God  in  Christ ;  whereas  it  seems  to  me, 
that  it  is  only  of  God  in  Christ  that  I  can  in  my  present  state  of 
being  conceive  anything  at  all.  To  know  God  the  Father,  that 
is,  God  as  he  is  in  himself,  in  his  to  us  incomprehensible  es- 
sence, seems  the  great  and  most  blessed  promise  reserved  for  us 
when  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on  immortality."  * 

There  is  a  singular  confusion  of  thought  and  incon- 
sistency of  sentiment  in  these  sentences,  which  glance 
off  from  a  beautiful  truth  into  a  foggy  fancy.  Christ 
comes  to  facilitate  our  conceptions  of  God,  to  be  the 
medium  for  our  vision,  our  confidence,  and  our  knowl- 
edge of  God,  to  make  clearer  and  stronger  to  us  the 
sublime  truth  of  Deity ;  and  Christ  effects  this,  Dr.  Ar- 
nold implies,  by  substituting  himself  for  the  Being  whom 
he  represents,  reveals,  and  brings  nearer  to  us!  If  from 
our  own  point  of  view  we  can  discern  any  change  which 

*  Letter  to  William  Smith,  Esq.,  March  9,  1833,  in  Life  by  Stanley. 


FUNDAMENTAL   TENET   OF  UNITARIANISM.  133 

in  process  of  years  will  be  sure  to  manifest  itself  in  the 
technics  of  theology,  it  is  this,  —  that  theologians  who 
have  been  so  long  trying  to  accommodate  this  doctrine 
of  some  sort  of  a  Trinity  to  their  belief,  will  surrender  it 
altogether  at  the  very  point  at  which  they  have  felt 
bound  to  accept  it ;  namely,  that  point  at  which  a 
recognition  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  been 
thought  essential  to  the  defence  of  the  Deity  of  Christ. 

Unitarianism  is  committed  to  this  fundamental  posi- 
tion, that,  however  exalted,  however  mysterious,  however 
undefined  by  limitations  in  a  divine  or  a  human  direc- 
tion, may  be  the  nature  and  the  rank  of  Jesus  Christ,  he 
is  not  presented  to  us  in  the  Gospel  as  claiming  the  un- 
derived  prerogatives  of  Deity ;  nor,  consequently,  as  an 
object  of  our  homage  or  prayer.  All  those  reiterated 
commonplaces  of  reproach  cast  upon  us,  —  of  denying 
the  Lord  that  bought  us,  —  of  defrauding  him  of  his  due 
honor,  —  of  relying  for  salvation  on  a  created  being,  — 
are  based  upon  assumptions  which  suppose  us  to  yield 
in  one  form  what  we  object  to  under  another  form  of 
doctrine.  It  is  a  gross  perversion  of  the  Apostle's  lan- 
guage to  say  that  he  meant,  by  a  denial  of  the  Lord,  a 
denial  of  him  as  our  God :  we  do  not  defraud  Jesus  of 
his  due  honor,  when  we  honor  him  for  what  he  is,  pre- 
cisely as  we  honor  God  for  what  He  is ;  and  if  we  rely 
on  the  being  "  whom  God  has  set  forth  to  be  our  Prince 
and  Saviour,"  we  feel  that  the  reliance  is  worthy  of  our 
trust.  We  certainly  cannot  be  said  to  withhold  the 
honor  due  to  Christ,  if,  persuaded  as  we  are  that  he 
always,  and  in  the  strongest  terms  of  definite  precept, 
claims  our  supreme  homage  for  his  Father  and  our 
Father,  we  restrict  the  tribute  paid  to  himself  within  the 
limitations  of  religious  awe.  We  do  not  understand  the 
object  of  the  Gospel  to  be  to  give  us  an  idea  of  a  com- 
plexity of  personality  in  the  Godhead,  but  to  exalt,  re- 
fine, and  render  practically  effective  the  old  reverence 
12 


134  USE   OF  SCRIPTURE  IN   ARGUMENT. 

associated  with  the  unchangeable  Jehovah.  Christ,  we 
think,  came  into  the  world  to  show  us  the  Father,  not  to 
divide  our  homage  with  the  Father.  He  came  to  lead 
us  to  God,  not  to  draw  us  to  himself  as  our  God.  He 
continually,  and  with  much  variety  of  language,  refers  us 
to  One  above  himself,  without  whom  he  could  do  noth- 
ing, the  Source  of  all  his  powers  and  gifts,  the  Being 
before  whom  he  was  himself  to  bring  and  lay  down  the 
tokens  of  his  fulfilled  commission.  He  forbids  all  hom- 
age or  supplication  addressed  to  himself,  and  enjoins 
that  such  exercises  be  offered  to  God. 

Unitarians,  therefore,  are  concerned  to  hold  and  to 
vindicate  the  sole  unity,  the  undivided  sovereignty,  of 
God.  If  any  spiritual  penalty  is  to  be  visited  upon  us 
here  or  hereafter  for  our  opinion  or  our  teaching  on  this 
point,  we  must  submit  to  bear  it.  We  do  and  shall 
plead,  however,  that  some  one  emphatic  sentence  —  one 
at  least  —  ought  to  have  been  recorded  from  the  Saviour 
in  assertion  of  his  underived  Deity,  equal  in  the  positive- 
ness  of  its  statement  to  that  of  a  hundred  sentences  in 
which  he  affirms  his  subordination  to  God. 

If  the  proportions  and  the  completeness  of  a  view, 
however  summary,  did  not  require  it,  we  would  most 
gladly  omit  all  reference  to  that  very  unwelcome  work  of 
following  the  argument  for  the  Deity  of  Christ  into  those 
ambushes  of  sentences,  half-sentences,  and  phrases  called 
texts,  —  proof-texts,  —  in  which  it  is  thought  to  hide. 
We  can  urge  ourselves  only  to  the  very  briefest  recogni- 
tion of  this  element  in  the  controversy.  The  processes 
for  constructing  and  for  answering  what  is  called  argu- 
ment on  this  point,  are  precisely  like  those  already  re- 
ferred to  in  connection  with  a  plea  for  or  against  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  A  conception  which  has  origi- 
nated outside  of  the  Scriptures,  from  the  exigencies  of 
speculation  and  theorizing,  is  ingeniously  carried  into 
a  textual  examination  of  the  Scriptures,  and  is  made  to 


DOUBTFUL  AND   EXPLICIT  TEXTS.  135 

claim  support  from  them  by  pleas  which  would  not  be 
considered  valid  in  the  interpretation  of  any  other  docu- 
ments. Happily,  however,  long  and  free  discussion  has 
simplified  the  terms  of  this  questionable  method.  The 
marvellous  discovery  has  been  made  by  a  most  careful 
and  candid  student  of  the  works  of  Christian  divines, 
that  each  single  text  and  each  single  process  of  rea- 
soning by  which  Trinitarianism  has  sought  to  prove  its 
Scriptural  authority,  has  been  surrendered  as  wholly  un- 
available for  that  purpose  by  a  series  of  writers  of  high- 
est eminence  and  scholarship  in  various  Trinitarian  com- 
munions.* Yet  more  remarkable,  too,  is  the  fact,  that  in 
the  very  closest  proximity  to  the  sentences  or  the  half- 
sentences  which  are  claimed  as  intimating,  darkly  or 
clearly,  the  Deity  of  Christ,  are  found  other  sentences  of 
a  most  explicit  character  which  are  in  direct  opposition 
to  such  an  inference. 

The  first  sentences  of  John's  Gospel  are  quoted  tri- 
umphantly by  Trinitarians,  with  this  brief  comment : 
Christ  is  the  Word ;  the  Word  is  said  to  be  God ;  there- 
fore Christ  is  God.  Now  suppose  in  those  sentences  we 
substitute,  not  only  Christ  in  place  of  the  Word,  but  also 
a  Trinitarian  equivalent  for  God.  That  equivalent  must 
be  either  the  term  Father,  or  the  term  Trinity.  We  will 
try  both  of  them,  thus  :  "  In  the  beginning  was  Christ, 
and  Christ  was  with  the  Father,  and  Christ  was  the 
Father."  That  will  not  do.  u  In  the  beginning  was 
Christ,  and  Christ  was  with  the  Trinity,  and  Christ  was 
the  Trinity."     Neither  will  that  do. 

We  are  reminded  that  Jesus  enjoined  "  that  all  men 
should  honor  the  Son,  even  as  they  honor  the  Father." 
(John  v.  23.)  But  do  the  words  "even  as"  when  so 
used,  imply  identity  of  being  in  two  who  are  to  be  hon- 
ored, or  that  an  identical  regard  is  required  for  each  ? 

*  See  "  Concessions  of  Trinitarians,"  &c.,  by  John  Wilson. 


136  DOUBTFUL   AND   EXPLICIT  TEXTS. 

Can  we  not  honor  the  Son  for  what  he  is,  even  as  we 
honor  the  Father  for  what  He  is  ?  Is  it  an  unusual  thing 
for  a  principal  in  sending  a  deputy  on  an  embassy  to  ask 
for  his  representative  a  regard  conformed  to  what  would 
be  paid  to  himself?  For  Jesus  himself  adds,  "  He  that 
honoreth  not  the  Son,  honoreth  not  the  Father  which  hath 
sent  him,"  —  certainly  recognizing  his  own  dependence. 

We  are  reminded  that  Thomas,  on  recognizing  his 
Master  by  his  wounds,  exclaims,  "  My  Lord,  and  my 
God ! "  (John  xx.  28,)  and  the  Trinitarian  insists  that 
he  applied  both  terms  to  the  Saviour.  But  must 
Thomas  be  precluded  from  the  possibility  of  having 
both  Christ  and  God  in  his  mind  in  that  moment  of  sur- 
prise and  earnest  outbursting  of  emotion?  Could  he 
not  apostrophize  the  Deity  as  we  ourselves  do  under  ex- 
citement on  far  lesser  occasions  ? 

We  are  reminded  that  the  martyr  Stephen,  rapt  in  a 
vision  of  glory  at  his  death,  "  saw  Jesus  standing  on 
the  right  hand  of  God."  (Acts  vii.  55.)  He  saw  two 
beings  then.  But  our  translators  have  introduced  into  a 
subsequent  verse  the  word  God,  which  is  not  in  the  origi- 
nal, thus  :  "  And  they  stoned  Stephen,  calling  upon  God, 
and  saying,  Lord  Jesus,"  instead  of  "  calling  out  and 
saying,  Lord  Jesus,"  &c.  (verse  59.) 

We  are  reminded  that  Jesus  says,  "  I  and  my  Father 
are  one."  (John  x.  30.)  But  does  he  not  twice  pray  that 
his  disciples  may  be  in  the  same  unity  which  exists  be- 
tween him  and  his  Father  ?  "  That  they  may  be  one, 
as  we  are."  (John  xvii.  11.)  "  That  they  all  may  be  one : 
as  thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also 
may  be  one  in  us."  (verse  21.) 

We  are  reminded  of  Paul's  assertion,  that  "all  things 
are  put  under  Christ."  (1  Cor.  xv.  27.)  But  does  not 
the  Apostle  add,  as  if  to  guard  against  all  possibility  of 
misconception, —  "It  is  manifest  that  He  is  excepted 
who  did  put  all  things  under  him ;  and  when  all  things 


DOCTRINE    OF   TWO   NATURES   IN   CIIRIST.  137 

shall  be  subdued  unto  him,  then  shall  the  Son  also  him- 
self be  subject  unto  Him  that  put  all  things  under  him, 
that  God  may  be  all  in  all "  ? 

We  are  reminded  that  the  same  Apostle  says  of  Christ 
(Coloss.  i.  16),  whom  he  has  just  called  "the  first-born 
of  every  creature  "  :  "  For  by  him  were  all  things  created 
that  are  in  heaven,  and  that  are  in  earth,"  &c.  But  when 
the  Apostle  proceeds  to  add,  "  For  it  pleased  the 
Father  that  in  him  should  all  fulness  dwell,"  (verse  19,) 
he  leaves  us  to  infer  that  all  things  were  created  and  dis- 
posed with  reference  to  Christ :  "  All  things  were  created 
by  him  and  for  him." 

We  are  reminded  that  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  quotes  a  Psalm  as  addressing  the  Son,  thus : 
"  Thy  throne,  O  God,  is  for  ever  and  ever ! "  (i.  8.) 
But  saying  nothing  of  the  sufficient  reasons  for  reading 
the  passage,  "  God  is  thy  throne  for  ever  and  ever,"  what 
are  we  to  do  with  the  next  verse,  which  says  :  "  Thou 
hast  loved  righteousness,  and  hated  iniquity  ;  therefore 
God,  even  thy  God,  hath  anointed  thee  with  the  oil  of 
gladness  above  thy  fellows  "  ? 

But  even  this  hopeless  method  of  attempting  to  de- 
duce from  scattered  sentences  or  half-sentences  the  proof 
of  a  doctrine  which  is  positively  precluded  by  contiguous 
sentences  of  the  plainest  import,  —  even  this  task  must 
be  pursued  under  the  pressure  of  a  necessity  for  proving 
that  Christ,  himself  one  in  the  Trinity  of  the  Godhead, 
united  in  his  own  person  a  divine  nature  and  a  human 
nature.  If  that  dogma  did  not  take  its  start  in  a  com- 
plete renunciation  of  the  natural  demand  that  an  intel- 
ligible idea  should  be  connected  with  every  positive  as- 
sertion, the  dogma  would  have  to  yield  itself  at  a  very 
early  stage  of  the  process  for  pursuing  it  through  the 
New  Testament.  Now  an  Apostle  tells  us,  that  we  our- 
selves are  "  partakers  of  the  divine  nature  "  ;  but  we  in- 
terpret the  words  as  teaching  us  that  this  gift  of  God  in 
12* 


138  DOCTRINE   OP  TWO   NATURES  IN   CHRIST. 

us  distinguishes  us  from  brutes  and  makes  us  men, — 
not  men  and  God;  still  less  does  it  make  us  partakers 
in  the  underived  prerogative  of  Deity ',  —  divine  in  our 
own  right.  "We  institute  no  comparison  between  the 
measurements  of  the  divine  gift  in  us,  and  that  in 
Christ,  for  we  believe  there  is  no  room  for  such  a  com- 
parison, as  Christ  had  the  spirit  of  God  without  meas- 
ure. But  a  gift,  however  unlimited  in  its  measurement, 
does  not  change  the  receiver  into  the  giver,  nor  transfer 
the  original  prerogative  of  self-centring  fulness  of  es- 
sence. The  more  such  a  gift  imparts,  the  more  does  it 
strengthen  the  difference  between  its  source  and  its  re- 
ceiver as  such,  and  the  closer  does  it  make  the  depend- 
ence of  its  object  upon  its  original.  This  fiction  of  a 
double  nature  in  Christ  does  not  cover  the  phenomena 
for  the  explanation  of  which  theologians  have  recourse 
to  it.  Jesus  says  of  his  highest  gifts  and  powers,  those 
which  in  him  are  most  exalting  and  most  divine,  that  he 
received  them  from  the  Being  wTho  also  gave  him  a  body 
for  the  manifestation  of  them.  We  might  possibly  con- 
ceive of  Deity  under  a  form  of  flesh,  and  listen  to  the 
speech  of  the  tongue  which  should  refer  its  wisdom  to 
the  indwelling  God.  But  what  if  the  indwelling  Spirit 
refers  us  to  the  Source  of  which  it  is  a  ray?  The  quali- 
ties in  Christ  which  lift  him  nearest  to  the  Supreme  are 
the  very  ones  to  which  he  most  emphatically  assigns  the 
proof  of  his  dependence  upon  God.  All  power  in  heaven 
and  on  earth  is  his  ;  but  not  self-possessed,  —  for  he  says 
it  was  given  to  him.  He  had  power  to  lay  down  his 
life,  and  he  had  power  to  take  it  again,  and  that,  too,  he 
had  "  received  from  the  Father."  When  a  believer  in 
the  double  nature  of  Christ  —  that  is,  as  defined  by 
the  popular  theology  —  undertakes  to  go  through  the 
New  Testament,  and  assign  his  words  and  deeds  re- 
spectively to  his  Deity  or  his  humanity,  he  will  find  that 
he  gathers  a  reserved  list  of  qualities  and  elements  of  a 


139 

doubtful  reference.  As  these  present  themselves,  the 
inquirer  is  forced  to  ask.  Did  Christ  say  this  as  God  or 
as  man  ?  Often  will  such  a  process  make  it  appear  that 
what  Christ  is  represented  as  saying  or  doing  in  his 
human  nature  is  above  the  sphere  of  humanity,  and 
that  what  is  affirmed  of  him  in  his  divine  nature  is 
below  the  sphere  of  Deity. 

And  what  becomes  of  the  individuality,  the  personal- 
ity of  Christ,  the  consistency  of  his  character,  and  the 
identity  of  his  consciousness,  when  in  the  sacred  drama 
of  his  Gospel  manifestation  he  is  represented  as  perform- 
ing in  two  parts,  and  without  change  of  fleshly  garb  or 
tone  or  speech  lays  aside  now  his  Deity  and  now  his 
humanity  in  alternate  moments  and  in  successive  sen- 
tences of  his  discourse?  His  prayers  must  be  construed 
as  soliloquies :  his  deeds  of  power  must  be  referred  to 
himself,  and  his  professions  of  dependence  to  one  element 
of  that  self,  speaking  of  another  element  in  the  same  self. 
The  incongruity,  the  incoherence,  which  the  Orthodox 
doctrine  of  two  natures  in  Christ  either  puts  into  or  draws 
from  the  Scriptures,  is  not  the  least  of  the  confounding 
conditions  of  the  theory.  When  an  individual  speaks 
of  himself  to  others,  they  understand  him  as  speaking  of 
all  that  is  embraced  under  his  seeming  and  his  real  in- 
dividuality. Unless  he  has  announced  himself  as  repre- 
senting two  characters,  and  as  free  to  pass  from  the  one 
impersonation  into  the  other  without  giving  warning  of 
the  transition,  his  two  characters  will  be  regarded  as 
making  up  one  character,  and  some  deeds  and  utterances 
which  would  have  been  intelligible  if  assigned  to  either 
of  his  impersonations,  become  inexplicable  if  referred  to 
his  composite  character.  Only  through  the  help  of  an 
illustration  —  for  which,  however,  we  need  not  apologize, 
as  the  candid  will  recognize  the  simple  intent  of  a  paral- 
lelism at  only  one  point  —  can  we  express  the  real  embar- 
rassment which  we  meet  in  attempting  to  deal  with  the 


140 


theory  of  a  double  nature  in  Christ.  Let  it  be  allowed 
us,  then,  to  conceive  of  a  man  who  is  concerned  in  busi- 
ness under  two  relations, — first  as  an  individual,  and 
second  as  a  member  of  a  firm  of  three  partners.  Under 
each  of  these  relations  he  receives  and  writes  letters, 
meets  at  his  two  offices  those  with  whom  he  has  deal- 
ings, and  speaks  and  acts  under  the  exigencies  of  his 
double  mercantile  connections.  As  a  member  of  the 
firm  he  has  visited  its  place  of  business,  consulted  its 
books,  and  read  letters  which  have  made  known  to  him 
certain  facts  of  a  very  serious  import  and  interest  to 
others.  He  goes  to  his  place  for  transacting  the  business 
which  he  does  on  his  private  account.  While  there,  a 
friend,  who  is  deeply  concerned  in  the  very  matters  of 
which  he  has  just  come  to  the  knowledge,  enters  and 
asks  for  information  about  them,  addressing  him  as  an 
individual  possessing  one  mind,  one  consciousness.  He 
replies  that  he  knows  nothing  about  the  matter,  keeping 
in  reserve,  however,  the  explanation  which  he  makes  to 
himself,  that  he  means  that  his  private  letters  are  silent 
on  the  subject.  Does  he  deal  fairly  with  his  questioner, 
especially  if  that  questioner  has  appealed  to  him  on  the 
very  ground  of  his  well-known  extended  and  various 
relations  to  the  business  affairs  of  the  world,  and  perhaps 
on  the  day  previous  has  heard  him  speak  in  that  char- 
acter ?  Precisely  this  question  would  be  continually 
presenting  itself  to  us  in  embarrassing  and  painful 
shapes  if  we  accepted  the  theory  of  a  double  nature  in 
Christ,  under  which,  when  questioned  as  an  individual 
on  the  ground  of  all  he  ever  claimed  to  know  and  to  be, 
he  replied  according  to  his  choice  of  characters  for  the 
moment,  by  a  claim  founded  on  his  Deity,  or  a  profes- 
sion of  limited  knowledge  or  ignorance  justified  by  his 
humanity.  The  Jews  understood  that  the  same  individ- 
uality of  being  addressed  them  in  the  words,  "I  can  of 
mine  own  self  do  nothing,"  as  in  the  words,  "  I  will  raise 


WHAT   THINK   YE   OF   CHRIST  ?  141 

him  up  at  the  last  day."  Not  the  least  intimation  does 
the  Saviour  appear  to  have  given  to  his  disciples  in  their 
privacy,  that  the  mystery  which  invested  him  was  to  be 
solved  by  distributing  his  words  and  deeds,  his  claims  of 
unlimited  power,  and  his  acknowledgments  of  depend- 
ence upon  one  above  him,  to  two  natures  united  in  him. 
If  he  had  two  natures  he  must  have  borne  two  charac- 
ters, and  his  discourses  and  actions  must  be  referred 
respectively  to  the  one  or  the  other,  so  far  as  is  possible. 
But  when  ingenuity  has  exhausted  itself  in  this  task,  it 
will  still  have  to  account  for  phenomena  attendant  upon 
the  Saviour  which  are  referable  neither  to  a  Self-Existent 
and  Infinite  God,  nor  to  any  manifestation  ever  yet 
made  of  human  nature.  We  reject  this  theological  fig- 
ment of  a  double  nature,  as  a  pare  invention  of  human 
brains,  a  Gnostic  conceit,  unwarranted  by  the  record,  and 
unavailable  for  the  solution  of  the  mystery  which  invests 
the  Messiah.     The  Gospel  is  not  chargeable  with  it. 

But  after  Unitarians  have  formed  and  avowTed  a  most 
positive  and  unqualified  conviction,  as  the  characteristic 
distinction  of  their  creed,  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  Scriptures  as  claiming  the  underived 
prerogatives  of  Deity,  nor  as  the  object  of  our  worship 
or  our  ultimate  trust,  Unitarians  have  to  answer  to 
themselves  and  to  others  the  question  which  the  Saviour 
puts  to  all  his  disciples,  "What  think  ye  of  Christ?" 
It  is  indeed  a  matter  for  thought,  for  serious  and  per- 
plexing thought.  The  field  over  which  that  thought  will 
range  is  so  wide,  and  men  will  bring  to  it  such  various 
capacities,  methods,  and  biases,  that  they  will  find  them- 
selves led  to  speculate  towards  different  conclusions. 
Obvious  it  is  to  every  candid  mind,  of  whatever  sect,  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  fixed  fundamental  tenet  of  Uni- 
tarianism  on  this  point,  which  prevents  our  rising  to  the 
highest  possible  conception  of  the  nature,  the  offices,  and 
the  agency  of  Christ.     Trinitarians  sometimes  speak  of 


142  EXALTATION   OF   CHRIST. 

us  as  if,  in  denying  an  underived  divinity  to  Christ,  we 
actually  deprived  ourselves  of  a  God  in  whom  we  might 
trust,  and  left  the  central  throne  of  heaven  empty  because 
we  do  not  seat  upon  it  the  vicegerent  of  the  Most  High. 
We  can  tell  them  that  our  doctrine  gives  to  us  the  same 
God  whom  they  worship,  and  another  being,  —  yes,  a 
Divine  Being  besides.  We  know  of  nothing  that  hin- 
ders but  that  God  may  impart,  may  delegate,  any  meas- 
urement of  his  own  properties,  save  simply  that  of  self- 
existence.  And  as  the  properties  of  God  are  infinite,  the 
One  who  partakes  of  them  in  the  highest  measurement 
must  be  exalted  above  human  powers  of  conception  for 
defining  the  compass  of  his  nature,  leaving,  however,  one 
single  limiting  distinction, — that,  as  there  can  be  but 
One  Infinite,  Self-Existent,  Supreme,  the  Son  must  be 
subordinated  to  the  Father.  And  this  is  the  truth  which 
is  in  part  declared  and  in  part  intimated  in  the  Saviour's 
own  affirmation,  "  My  Father  is  greater  than  I."  The 
declaration  subordinates  Christ  to  God,  the  intimation 
exalts  Christ  all  but  infinitely  above  humanity.  It  would 
be  preposterous,  for  a  being  standing  in  human  form 
among  men,  to  utter  the  blank  and  stolid  conceit  of 
owning  his  inferiority  to  God.  A  distinctive  exaltation 
above  the  sphere  of  humanity  is  the  essence  of  the 
meaning  of  that  utterance.  The  pointing  upwards  to 
the  one  who  is  Highest  as  the  only  one  who  is  higher, 
distinguishes  Christ  alike  from  Deity  and  from  human- 
ity. The  universe  of  being  is  to  us  enriched  by  an  ad- 
ditional being,  through  the  view  which  we  entertain  of 
Christ.  The  awful  vacuum  between  the  loftiest  par- 
takers of  angelic  natures  and  the  Supreme  has  now  a 
radiant  occupant,  who  fills  the  whole  of  it.  That  Uni- 
tarians are  disposed  to  conceive  of  Christ  under  the 
highest  exposition  which  the  strongest  phrase  or  sentence 
of  Scripture  makes  of  him,  is  an  admission  which  they 
will  not  ask  of  the  charity,  for  they  demand  it  of  the 


EXALTATION  OF   CHRIST.  143 

justice,  of  their  opponents.  How  absurd  it  is  to  charge 
us  with  derogating  from  the  claims  or  the  honor  of 
Jesus!  Such  censorious  words  imply  a  motive  which 
we  know  is  not  in  our  hearts.  What  possible  induce- 
ment could  we  have  to  entertain  it?  Between  us  and 
other  Christians,  what  different  influences  in  purpose  or 
inclination  can  be  traced,  which  would  warrant  such  an 
impugning  of  our  sincerity  as  is  implied  in  these  odious 
charges  ?  To  derogate  from  the  just  claims  or  honor  of 
another,  to  reduce  his  dignity,  or  to  withhold  his  rightful 
tribute,  implies  always  a  mean  or  a  malignant  feeling ; 
and  if  Unitarians  deserve  such  a  charge,  let  it  be  spoken 
boldly,  in  manly  candor,  and  not  intimated  by  covert 
insinuations.  During  the  progress  of  this  controversy 
many  an  Orthodox  preacher  in  city  and  country  pulpits, 
relying  upon  his  own  conceit,  or  trusting  to  the  oracular 
authority  which  he  may  have  with  those  who  are  willing 
to  listen  to  him  as  a  teacher  of  Christian  truth,  has  ven- 
tured to  tell  them  in  unqualified  terms,  "  Unitarians 
degrade  and  deny  the  Saviour."  It  is  difficult  to  sup- 
pose that  any  one  can  so  speak  of  professed  Christians^ 
without  communicating  to  himself  at  least  a  glow  of 
unchristian  passion,  even  if  the  language  were  not  sug- 
gested by  such  a  feeling.  But  imagine  these  preachers 
to  have  substituted  some  such  language  as  this :  "  Uni- 
tarians, with  all  the  means  of  knowing  the  truth  which  I 
myself  have,  and  in  the  exercise  of  a  desire,  which  I  have 
no  right  to  think  is  not  as  thoroughly  sincere  and  pure 
as  my  own  desire,  to  discover  what  the  truth  is,  believe 
that  Christ,  however  exalted  he  may  be,  is  not  identical 
with  God."  We  venture  to  say  that  this  latter  style  of 
address,  if  it  had  prevailed,  would  have  given  us  a  better 
opinion  of  the  candor  of  Orthodox  preachers  in  seeking 
to  instruct  large  classes  of  those  who  are  disposed  to 
listen  to  them  most  confidingly,  than  we  have  now. 
Our  sole  aim  and  wish  are  to  gather  from  the  New 


144  RANGE   OF  UNITARIAN  VIEWS. 

Testament  as  intelligible  and  adequate  a  conception  as 
is  possible  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  are  concerned  to  do 
this  through  the  force  of  two  equally  serious  and  sincere 
motives,  —  the  one  having  in  view  the  strength  and 
clearness  of  our  own  mental  and  spiritual  apprehension 
of  him  as  the  Messiah,  the  other  looking  to  a  reverent 
gratitude  to  Christ  himself  in  assigning  him  his  place  in 
our  hearts.  We  wish  to  think  rightly  of  Christ,  in  order 
that  we  may  believe  in  him,  may  rest  our  confidence  in 
his  authority  and  his  sufficiency ;  and  in  order  that  we 
may  love  him,  as  he  made  our  affection  the  highest  con- 
dition for  putting  us  into  such  a  relation  to  him  as  will 
constitute  him  our  Saviour.  It  is  simply  and  wholly 
through  force  of  convictions  wrought  by  a  serious  study 
of  the  Scriptures,  that  Unitarians,  who  agree  in  a  denial 
of  the  Deity  of  Christ,  are  led  to  differ  in  their  meta- 
physical views  of  him.  Their  differences  range  over  the 
whole  field  of  conception  between  an  idea  of  Christ  as 
a  man  miraculously  endowed,  and  an  idea  of  him  as  the 
sharer  of  God's  throne,  his  counsellor  and  companion, 
holding  rank  above  all  other  orders  of  being,  and  touch- 
ing upon  the  prerogatives  of  Deity.  To  some,  the  Arian 
hypothesis  of  Christ  as  pre-existent,  ranking  above  all 
angels,  and  dwelling  before  all  worlds  were  made  in  the 
bosom  of  God,  has  been  a  favorite  conviction.  To 
others,  this  hypothesis  is  barren  of  all  that  gives  to  a 
high  theme  of  faith  its  glow  and  grandeur,  as  it  vainly 
attempts  to  exalt  Christ  chiefly  by  extending  his  exist- 
ence through  a  longer  space  of  time.  Others  still  insist 
that  the  very  last  question  suggested  by  the  New  Tes- 
tament, as  a  matter  of  concern  to  us,  is  that  of  Christ's 
nature,  inasmuch  as  we  are  interested  only  in  his  office, 
and  have  to  do  with  him  only  as  a  visitor  to  this  earth 
for  the  especial  purposes  of  revelation  which  he  has  now 
fulfilled.  And  yet  again,  we  have  met  on  Unitarian 
pages  an  accepted  use  of  the  phrase  "  the  eternal  gener- 


HUMANITARIANISM.  145 

ation  of  the  Son."  We  know  that  those  who  use  this 
phrase  neither  intend  to  utter  an  absurdity,  nor  to  signify- 
that  they  are  saying  something  while  yet  they  say  noth- 
ing. Still  we  are  sure  that  we  do  not  get  their  idea, 
for  we  get  no  idea  at  all  from  their  words.  The  gener- 
ation of  a  son,  or  the  birth  of  a  son,  indicates  an  event, 
an  incident  that  transpires  at  some  point  in  time.  Now 
if  the  epithet  mysterious,  or  original,  or  undated,  or  a  like 
epithet,  was  connected  with  the  word,  we  should  ac- 
knowledge the  presence  of  an  idea ;  but  to  connect  eter- 
nal with  the  generation  of  anything,  if  it  effects  any 
purpose,  takes  back  in  one  of  the  words  what  is  asserted 
in  the  other.  Happily,  however,  it  is  an  understood 
canon  of  language  that  every  idea,  if  it  is  an  idea  which 
requires  two  words  to  express  it,  may  be  stated  in  at  least 
two  ways,  —  generally  in  several  ways,  but  always  in 
two.  Now  if  those  who  use  the  phrase  "the  eternal 
generation  of  the  Son,"  as  expressing  a  point  in  their 
belief,  will  put  their  idea  into  another  form  of  expres- 
sion, we  may  perhaps  be  helped  to  understand  their 
meaning. 

Those  Unitarians  who  regard  Jesus  as  presented  to  us 
under  a  simply  human  aspect,  hold  this  opinion  not  ne- 
cessarily through  the  force  of  any  prejudice,  but  as  the 
transcript  and  substance  of  what  they  think  the  plain 
New  Testament  teaching  upon  it.  They  believe  that 
miraculous  endowments  from  God  on  a  basis  of  pure 
humanity  —  complemented,  perfected,  and  inspired  man- 
hood —  fill  out  every  representation  there  made  of  Christ, 
account  for  all  he  was  and  did,  ratify  all  that  he  taught 
or  promised,  adapt  him  to  all  our  necessities  as  a 
"  high-priest  touched  with  the  feelings  of  our  infirmi- 
ties," as  "  the  faithful  and  true  witness  "  of  God,  and  as 
"  able  to  save  unto  the  uttermost  those  who  come  unto 
God  by  him."  And  when  those  who  thus  believe  are 
taunted  or  challenged  for  relying,  —  as  the  rebuke  is 
13 


146  ARIANISM. 

worded,  —  for"  relying  for  salvation  on  a  created  being," 
they  have  but  to  answer,  that  they  no  more  rely  for  their 
salvation  than  they  did  for  their  existence  upon  a  created 
being-,  as  their  reliance  is  simply  and  ultimately  upon 
God,  though  it  may  be  mediately  upon  any  agency  or 
method  which  God  may  have  chosen.  For  if  God  chose 
a  created  being  to  be  the  medium  of  our  salvation,  as  he 
made  created  beings  to  be  the  mediums  of  our  exist- 
ence, his  power  and  wisdom  in  the  choice  of  such  an 
agency  or  method  are  not  to  be  questioned,  while  "  the 
grace  is  still  the  same."  If  any  one  should  refuse  to  ac- 
cept the  proffer  of  salvation  through  such  an  agency,  as 
too  humble  or  inadequate,  he  might  be  reminded  of  the 
rebuke  conveyed  to  the  Syrian  leper  by  his  servant, 
when  he  compared  the  river  of  Israel  so  contemptuously 
with  Abana  and  Pharpar.  This  taunt  of  relying  for  sal- 
vation on  a  created  being  is  meant,  of  course,  to  con- 
vey the  idea  that  the  Scriptures  teach  that  not  only  the 
Source,  but  the  Mediator,  of  our  salvation  is  an  uncre- 
ated being.  But  this,  however,  opens  again  the  whole 
question  as  to  what  the  teaching  of  Scripture  on  this 
point  is.  Let  that  sole,  simple  issue  stand  clear  of  all 
such  taunts  upon  those  who,  as  sincerely  and  as  intelli- 
gently as  others  who  come  to  different  conclusions,  are 
brought  to  the  belief  that  Christ  is  presented  to  us  in 
Scripture  as  the  perfection  of  humanity,  or,  in  the  words 
of  Peter,  as,  *  a  man  approved  of  God  by  miracles,  and 
wonders,  and  signs  which  God  did  by  him." 

Yet  others  among  the  Unitarians  have  been  as  strenu- 
ous as  have  been  any  of  the  believers  in  the  Trinity  in  re- 
jecting this  humanitarian  view  of  Christ.  Earnest  have 
been  the  protests  of  many  among  us  against  that  view. 
Some  have  firmly  believed  that  the  truth  lay  wholly  in 
an  opposite  direction,  and  so  have  embraced  the  theory 
of  the  pre-existence,  the  super-angelic  glory  of  Christ,  as 
being  the  first-born  of  the  creation  of  God,  constituting 


RELATION   OF   CHRIST  TO    GOD.  147 

a  sacred  companionship  in  the  otherwise  lonely  majesty 
of  heaven,  the  sharer  and  almost  the  equal  in  essence 
with  the  Supreme,  waiting  that  fulness  of  time  which 
should  bring  him  in  human  form  to  this  earth.  One 
may  hold  this  belief  as  millions  have  held  it,  and  still  be 
in  all  strictness  a  Unitarian ;  for  Unitarianism  is  commit- 
ted simply  to  a  distinction  between  God  and  Christ,  — 
a  distinction  which  subordinates  Christ  to  God.  Cer- 
tainly here  is  a  wide  range  for  faith,  —  wide  enough  for 
every  phase  of  mental  conception,  wide  enough  to  fill 
out  every  form  of  language,  every  shaping  of  thought, 
which  we  find  in  the  Scriptures.  We  must  distinguish 
between  God  and  Christ,  and  the  attempt  to  confound 
them  would  to  us  require  a  yielding  up  of  the  most  ex- 
plicit statements  of  the  New  Testament,  which  give 
added  distinctness  to  our  conceptions  of  both  those  be- 
ings by  assigning  to  each  a  work  that  individualizes 
their  relation  to  us.  Even  though,  in  the  work  of  re- 
demption, and  in  the  manifestation  made  to  us  of  the 
Father  in  the  Son,  there  is  a  blending  of  their  glory,  and 
we  find  it  hard  to  separate  their  office  and  agency,  they 
are  still  seen  to  part  at  the  very  point  in  which  they  are 
in  closest  union ;  just  as  when  a  powerful  telescope  is 
turned  towards  one  of  those  sparkling  orbs  which  glitter 
in  the  midnight  sky,  it  seems  to  the  eye  to  be  single, 
but  the  keenest  gaze  resolves  it  into  a  double  star,  one 
of  which  is  of  the  first  magnitude,  and  the  other  of  which 
is  not.  Dr.  Woods  (in  his  Ninth  Letter  to  Unitarians) 
says  that  the  distinction  between  the  Father  and  the 
Son  "  is  of  such  a  nature  that  they  are  two,  and  are  in 
Scripture  represented  to  be  two  as  really  as  Moses  and 
Aaron,  though  not  in  a  sense  inconsistent  with  their  es- 
sential unity."  The  obvious  meaning  of  the  last  clause 
of  this  sentence  is,  evidently,  not  the  meaning  which  the 
writer  intended  to  convey  ;  but  conveniently  for  himself, 
though  disappointingly  to  us,  he  stops  short  of  convey- 


148  THE  WORD  MADE  FLESH. 

ing  what  meaning  he  must  have  thought  he  had  in  his 
own  mind. 

It  seems  to  us  that  some  of  the  highest  and  most 
precious  uses  for  which  God  was  manifested  in  the 
person  of  Christ,  are  wholly  sacrificed  when  Christ  is 
merged  back  into  Deity.  Some  of  our  own  writers,  in 
the  sedate  calmness  of  written  discourse,  as  well  as  in 
the  loftiest  strains  of  their  devotional  rhetoric,  have  ex- 
pressed their  earnest  belief  in  "  the  Incarnation  of  God," 
and  have  spoken  of  Christ,  not  simply  as  the  Incarnate 
Word  of  God,  but  as  the  Incarnate  God.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  the  use  of  this  phrase  must  involve  some  of 
those  indeterminate  and  undefined  significations  attach- 
ing to  phraseology,  the  materials  of  which  are  meta- 
physical, while  its  purpose  is  to  convey  a  most  literal 
and  direct  meaning.  The  phrase  is  burdened  not  only 
with  all  the  wealth  and  majesty  of  Christian  concep- 
tions, but  also  with  all  the  poverty  and  meanness  of 
Hindoo  doctrines.  In  fact,  it  is  one  of  those  phrases 
which  indicates  either  a  doubtful  fancy,  or  an  adequate 
and  intelligible  and  satisfactory  interpretation  of  one  of 
the  highest  conceptions  of  the  spirit,  —  according  to  the 
companionship  which  it  may  find  in  the  other  religious 
ideas  of  each  human  mind.  But  our  point  is  this :  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  presented  to  us  as  a  real  and  distinct  be- 
ing,—  as  a  real  individuality,  not  merely  as  the  medium  of 
a  manifestation.  To  resolve  him  back  into  Deity,  while 
it  makes  no  addition  to  the  Godhead,  deprives  us  of  a 
being  nearer  to  our  conceptions,  and  more  available  to 
some  of  our  highest  needs  of  guidance,  knowledge,  and 
confidence.  The  moon  we  know  receives  all  its  light 
from  the  sun,  imparting  only  to  us  the  brightness  and 
blessing  which  it  has  received.  But  having  received 
those  rays  from  its  source,  it  has  a  power  of  concen- 
trating and  reflecting  them,  and  that  power  in  the  moon 
of  concentrating  and  reflecting  the  rays  of  the  sun  is  the 


PRESENT   AGENCY   OF   CHRIST.  149 

subsidiary  condition  which  makes  the  moon  a  helpful 
orb  to  us.  The  sun  would  have  no  perceptible  increase 
of  light  if  it  called  in  the  beams  which  it  lends  to  our 
beautiful  satellite,  but  then  we  should  lose  one  of  heav- 
en's fairest  objects.  If  it  were  to  be  proved  that  there 
really  is  no  organized  body  answering  to  what  we  call 
the  moon,  but  that  the  sun's  rays  not  only  gild,  but  also 
by  some  wondrous  process  create,  the  appearance  of  such 
an  orb,  by  casting  a  blazing  focus  like  a  spectrum  into 
one  spot  amid  the  mists  of  heaven,  the  realms  of  space 
would  be  deprived  of  a  solid  body,  and  in  place  of  it  we 
should  have  a  phantasm.  Similar  would  be  the  loss 
among  the  objects  of  our  religious  faith  and  devotional 
reliance,  if  Christ,  as  a  distinct  reality,  is  resolved  into  a 
radiation  of  God.  We  believe,  indeed,  that  his  light  is 
not  his  own,  yet  we  also  believe  that  that  light  does  not 
create  a  phantom  form,  but  is  concentrated  and  reflected 
by  the  Son,  who  u  has  life  "  and  being  "  in  himself." 

Nor  is  it  only  in  the  earthly  offices  and  ministry  of 
Christ  that  we  find  reason  to  distinguish  him  from  God. 
The  straits  of  devotion,  trust,  aspiration,  and  religious 
experience  are  relieved  by  a  firm  belief  in  him  who  is 
seated  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Supreme,  still  intrusted 
with  the  mission  which  thirty  years  of  an  earthly  minis- 
try did  not  complete.  We  believe  in  the  present  exist- 
ence of  Christ,  not  as  God,  but  as  Christ.  We  believe 
in  his  present  agency  for  his  Church.  The  Scriptures 
positively  affirm  that  he  is  now  watching  over  his  own 
work,  advancing  his  own  cause.  He  is  called  our  Advo- 
cate and  Intercessor  with  the  Father.  Christian  trust 
and  love,  and  the  conscious  want  and  dependence  of  the 
heart,  can  fill  out  the  meaning  of  those  terms  if — and 
only  if — Christ  is  still  existing,  not  as  God,  but  as 
Christ.  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  give  any  natural  or 
intelligible  meaning  to  those  terms,  if  we  call  Christ 
God ;  for  then  we  have  God  interceding  with  God, 
13* 


150  INADEQUATE   VIEWS   OF   CHRIST. 

and  we  lose  our  Mediator.  Trinitarianism  teaches  that 
Christ  parted  with  all  that  in  him  and  about  him  was 
not  God  when  he  left  the  earth,  and  in  dropping  the 
flesh,  which  alone  brought  him  into  sympathy  of  nature 
with  us,  returned  to  the  sky  in  the  simple  exaltation  of 
Deity.  If  so,  his  separate  ministry  for  us  has  ceased. 
But  we  need  it  still,  and  never  more  than  since  he  has 
passed  into  the  heavens.  We  need  him  still,  as  a  being 
distinguishable  by  our  thought  and  faith  from  God,  that 
he  may  lead  us  up  to  God,  and  reconcile  us  to  God. 
The  Trinitarian  view  of  him  now  is  but  a  barren  theory 
of  metaphysics  to  us.  Reliance  upon  his  written  teach- 
ings is  but  a  cold,  didactic  exercise,  unless  quickened  by 
faith  in  an  ever-living  Christ. 

The  candor  with  which  we  have  aimed  to  pursue  this 
discussion  requires  of  us  one  frank  confession  at  its  close. 
We  are  concerned  to  state  with  emphasis  the  fact  that, 
as  one  result  of  the  controversy  on  this  point,  there  has 
been  a  marked  and  most  edifying  change  in  the  prevail- 
ing tone  of  Unitarian  discourse  upon  the  offices  and  the 
agency  of  Christ.  We  are  willing,  too,  to  admit  our  in- 
debtedness to  some  cautions  and  remonstrances  from 
our  doctrinal  opponents,  while  we  also  affirm  that  our 
experiences  within  our  own  fold  and  within  our  own 
breasts  have  ratified  these  remonstrances  as  not  wholly 
uncalled  for  and  as  highly  salutary  to  us.  Not  forget- 
ting the  many  tracts  and  essays  and  sermons  by  early 
Unitarians,  whose  fervor  of  faith  and  exalted  trust  in  the 
mediatorial  and  superhuman  offices  of  Christ  fed  the 
piety  of  multitudes  of  our  cherished  and  sainted  dead, 
we  admit  that  some  of  high  repute  among  us  have  fa- 
vored what  are  called  low,  and  chilling,  and  inadequate 
views  of  the  Author  and  Finisher  of  our  faith.  One  of 
the  least  available  uses  which  Christ  serves  to  us  is  that 
of  an  "  Example,"  simply  because  the  availableness  of  an 
example  consists  in  exciting  and  aiding  us  to  imitate  it, 


INADEQUATE  VIEWS   OF   CHRIST.  151 

and  our  imitation  of  Christ  must  necessarily  be  at  so 
fearfully  long  and  hopeless  a  distance,  that  even  to  lay 
much  stress  on  his  being  an  example  to  us  would  be 
more  apt  to  mislead  us  into  an  over-confidence  in  our- 
selves as  imitators,  than  to  an  adequate  conception  of 
that  perfect  being.  We  may  imitate  some  actions  of 
the  Saviour,  —  but  to  imitate  him  is  a  task  which  means 
more  than  the  words  convey.  If  we  were  to  spend 
a  lifetime  on  the  study  of  Newton's  Principia,  and 
were  to  undertake  to  verify  every  process  in  his  deduc- 
tions, we  should  be  disposed  to  take  the  name  of  a  dis- 
ciple, rather  than  that  of  an  imitator  of  Newton.  Have 
not  Unitarians  overlooked  some  of  the  proportions  of 
truth  in  speaking  of  Christ  as  an  example  ?  There  may 
have  been  no  speculative  error  in  this,  seeing  that  Christ 
set  before  us  God  himself  as  our  example.  But  if  that 
has  been  to  any  a  paramount  view  of  Christ,  it  may 
have  practically  obscured  some  of  his  other  offices. 

Nor  does  the  epithet  "  Teacher  "  suit  any  high  devo- 
tional conception  of  Christ.  When  curious  dividers  of 
the  word  of  truth  have  proclaimed  that  every  didactic 
lesson,  every  precept,  every  moral  truth,  taught  by  Christ, 
may  be  paralleled  by  a  quotation  from  Hebrew  or  clas- 
sic pages,  what  is  there  left  to  signalize  him  as  a  teach- 
er? True,  we  may  sublimate  the  word  Teacher,  and 
make  it  embrace  the  authority,  the  evidences,  and  the  at- 
tractions of  the  lessons  conveyed  by  the  only  perfect  and 
heaven-attested  Teacher ;  but  that  is  connecting  the  epi- 
thet with  Christ  rather  for  the  sake  of  exalting  the  word 
than  for  the  purpose  of  giving  him  his  highest  title.  The 
distinction  of  a  teacher  is  his  doctrine,  and  when  that 
doctrine  so  far  transcends  any  other  teaching  as  to  em- 
brace not  only  the  loftiest  lessons,  but  also  the  influences, 
the  appeals,  and  the  aid  which  give  them  their  power 
over  the  soul,  the  functions  of  a  Teacher  are  absorbed  in 
the  offices  of  a  Saviour.     A  didactic  view  of  the  Gospel 


152  LOVE   AND   REVERENCE  FOR  CHRIST. 

has  found  perhaps  an  excess  and  disproportion  of  favor 
among  Unitarians. 

u  You  do  not  make  enough  of  Christ,"  has  been  the 
remonstrance  addressed  to  us.  We  have  listened  to  it. 
If  it  ever  offended  us,  it  shall  henceforward  be  of  service 
to  us.  We  believe  that  it  has  been  of  service  to  us,  for 
the  reason  that  some  in  our  own  communion  have  made 
it  a  self-reproaching  accusation,  which  has  warmed  their 
hearts  and  deepened  their  Christian  love.  We  have  not 
made  enough  of  Christ.  No  denomination  of  Christians 
makes  enough  of  Christ.  Unitarians,  having  been  com- 
pelled to  treat  of  Christ  by  methods  which  metaphysi- 
cally subordinate  him,  have  been  in  danger  of  losing  sight 
of  the  best  influence  from  him  and  of  the  conditions  for 
securing  it.  We  should  be  glad  to  feel  that  we  have 
done  with  the  metaphysical  discussion,  and  may  hence- 
forward forego  it,  that  we  may  give  all  our  thought  to 
the  devotional,  the  spiritual  apprehension  of  Christ.  This 
is  to  us  the  great,  the  best  result  of  the  controversy. 

Henceforth  it  shall  be  with  less  and  less  of  reason  fur- 
nished by  us,  that  our  opponents  shall  say,  "  You  do  not 
make  enough  of  Christ."  Having  distinguished  him 
from  God,  we  feel  all  the  more  our  need  of  him  to  guide 
us  to  God,  to  manifest  God  to  us.  We  recognize  in  our 
own  deepest  wants  the  craving  to  which  he  ministers. 
We  know  and  own  that,  in  a  Gospel  which  comes  by 
Christ,  Christ  must  be  the  foremost  object,  and  that  every 
sentiment  engaged  by  that  Gospel  must  yield  some  trib- 
ute of  heart  and  soul  to  him.  If  in  the  ardor  of  contro- 
versy we  have  seemed  to  depreciate  any  office  of  Christ, 
or,  in  our  jealousy  for  the  prerogative  of  the  Supreme,  to 
forget  any  of  our  obligations  of  love  and  reverence  to  his 
Messiah,  we  can  say  that  it  has  been  so  only  in  the 
seeming,  and  not  in  reality.  If  in  the  spirit  of  charity 
our  opponents  have  charged  us  with  our  seeming  error 
on  this  point,  we  thank  them  for  it.     We  would,  how- 


A    POSITIVE  FAITH.  153 

ever,  remind  them,  that  we  are  not  driven  to  such  a  mis- 
take by  any  exigencies  of  our  doctrinal  position,  as  de- 
nying the  Trinity  and  the  underived  Deity  of  Christ. 
"  To  us  there  is  one  God,  the  Father,  of  whom  are  all 
things,  and  we  in  him  ;  and  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by 
whom  are  all  things,  and  we  by  him."  (1  Cor.  viii.  6.) 
Our  negations  may  be  the  most  striking  characteristic 
of  our  creed  to  its  opponents ;  but  our  positive  faith  is 
the  condition  of  its  power  and  truth  and  value  to  our- 
selves. 


UNITARIANISM  AND  ORTHODOXY 


THE    ATONEMENT. 


UXITARIANISM   AND   ORTHODOXY 


THE   ATONEMENT. 


Pursuing  our  general  review  of  a  half-century  of  the 
controversy  still  in  agitation  between  the  divided  repre- 
sentatives of  the  old  Congregational  body  of  New  Eng- 
land, we  have  summed  up  the  views  of  the  two  parties 
on  two  of  their  great  doctrinal  issues.  It  remains  for  us 
to  follow  the  same  method  in  dealing  with  what  we 
have  already  denned  as  the  third  of  the  chief  topics  of 
discussion  and  division.  This  concerns  the  Scripture 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement :  the  agency  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  securing  the  reconciliation  between  God  and  men ; 
the  need  of  such  an  agency,  the  mode  of  its  operation 
and  of  its  efficacy. 

"  Unitarians  deny  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,"  is 
the  judgment  pronounced  against  us  by  the  Orthodox. 
"  Unitarians  believe  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,"  is 
our  earnest,  self-convinced,  and  solemn  assertion,  made 
in  answer  to  that  judgment.  What  then  ?  Is  it  a  ques- 
tion of  veracity  between  us,  involving  a  slander  or  false- 
hood on  the  one  side,  and  a  plea  of  self-defence  on  the 
other  ?  No !  There  may  be  misunderstanding,  there 
may  be  misrepresentation,  but  we  make  no  charge  of 
intentional  falsifying.  Is  it  then  a  question  as  to  the 
14 


158  THE  DOCTRINE   OF  ATONEMENT. 

meaning  of  a  word,  so  that,  while  the  parties  respectively 
affirm,  or  deny,  they  do  not  affirm  and  deny  the  same 
thing,  because  they  attach  quite  different  significations 
to  the  same  word  on  which  the  whole  issue  hangs  ? 
There  certainly  is  involved  in  the  controversy  much 
difference  of  opinion  and  much  debate  as  to  the  mean- 
ing of  a  few  very  important  words,  especially  of  the 
word  atonement.  The  controversy  some  years  ago 
turned  far  more  than  it  does  now  upon  the  meaning  of 
that  one  word.  Unitarians  insisted,  that  the  word  atone- 
ment, according  to  its  etymology  and  its  actual  use  at 
the  time  when  our  English  version  of  the  Bible  adopted 
it,  signified  reconciliation.  Unitarians  also  urged,  that 
a  false  view  of  the  Scripture  doctrine  had  connected  an 
erroneous  association  with  the  word  atonement,  had  in 
fact  changed  its  popular  signification ;  and  that  the  word 
reconciliation  ought  to  be  substituted  for  it  in  the  only 
place  where  it  occurs  in  the  New  Testament.  Orthodox 
controversialists  stoutly  and  obstinately  denied  these  as- 
sertions. Happily,  however,  that  point  may  now  be  re- 
garded as  yielded  by  them.  So  far,  the  controversy  as  a 
strife  about  words  has  abated.  But  while  the  embar- 
rassment of  one  merely  verbal  dispute  is  set  aside,  the 
controversy  is  still  largely  and  almost  hopelessly  com- 
plicated with  questions  as  to  the  signification  and  the 
interpretation  of  terms  of  language.  Charity,  therefore, 
requires  of  us  to  explain  that,  when  the  Orthodox  so 
flatly  and  positively  affirm  that  Unitarians  do  not  be- 
lieve the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  in  spite  of  the  asser- 
tion of  the  Unitarians  that  they  do  believe  it,  the  Or- 
thodox mean  simply  that  Unitarians  do  not  accept  their 
interpretation  of  the  Scripture  doctrine.  The  Orthodox, 
taking  for  granted  the  infallibility  of  their  decision  in 
scholarship,  criticism,  and  matters  of  open  debate  in  the 
articles  of  Christian  faith,  identify  their  conclusions  with 
Scripture  doctrine.     They  hold  Unitarians  not  only  to  a 


PARTIES  TO  THE  CONTROVERSY.         159 

belief  of  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  Atonement,  but  also 
to  a  reception  of  their  construction  and  interpretation  of 
that  doctrine.  It  is  thus  that  an  issue  is  opened  be- 
tween the  two  parties,  and  fairly  opened.  The  contro- 
versy has  so  far  warranted  its  own  just  grounds  and 
occasion,  as  to  prove  that  the  assurance  heretofore  ex- 
hibited, in  quietly  taking  for  granted  the  identity  of  Or- 
thodoxy and  of  Scripture  doctrine,  had  better  give  way 
to  the  more  becoming  and  deliberate  processes  of  patient, 
serious,  and  humble  examination.  Disciples  of  Christ, 
as  sincere  and  faithful  as  any  of  those  whose  names 
shine  on  the  records  of  the  Church  Universal :  scholars  as 
profoundly  versed  in  the  mysteries  of  tongues  and  inter- 
pretation as  any  of  those  whom  Orthodoxy  has  accepted 
for  oracles :  and  humble,  obedient,  and  hopeful  disciples 
of  the  faith  in  every  condition  of  human  life,  have  found 
a  glorious  and  merciful  doctrine  of  Atonement  in  the 
Scriptures,  quite  different  from  that  which  Orthodoxy 
teaches.  The  issue,  then,  is  not  whether  the  Orthodox 
speak  truth  or  untruth  when  they  affirm  that  Unitarians 
do  not  believe  the  atonement;  but  the  issue  is  simply 
and  solely  this,  —  What  is  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  the 
atoning  work  of  Christ?  If  the  Orthodox  have  any 
advantage  over  the  Unitarians,  as  respects  sincerity  of 
purpose,  or  docility  of  mind,  or  humility  of  spirit,  they 
have  but  to  claim  it,  and  to  prove  their  claim.  They 
will  find  us  quite  easy  of  conviction  on  proper  proof. 
Failing  any  such  inequality  of  position  or  advantage, 
the  issue  between  the  parties  seems  to  be,  as  in  fact  it 
always  has  been,  one  depending  entirely  upon  an  honest 
and  intelligent  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures.  The 
candid  Bishop  Butler  has  frankly  remarked,  "  There  is 
not,  I  think,  anything  relating  to  Christianity  which  has 
been  more  objected  against,  than  the  mediation  of  Christ 
in  some  or  other  of  its  parts."  *     The  admission  affords 

*  Analogy,  Part  II.  Chap.  V. 


160  A  FUNDAMENTAL  DOCTRINE. 

an  admirable  introduction  to  every  attempt  at  a  fair 
inquiry,  for  the  sake  of  discovering  where  the  strength  of 
the  objection  to  the  Orthodox  doctrine  really  lies. 

Would  that  the  time  had  fully  come  for  the  treatment 
of  this  theme  solely  under  a  positive  form  of  statement, 
simply  to  present  accepted  truth  in  all  its  manifold  rela- 
tions of  tenderness  and  power  for  the  heart  of  man  ;  be- 
cause the  Christian  doctrine  of  Atonement  is  a  doctrine 
which,  by  the  consent  of  all  parties,  addresses  the  heart. 
There  are  two  emphatic  reasons  which  make  it  above 
all  things  desirable  that  this  doctrine,  instead  of  being 
a  ground  of  division  and  alienation  between  Christian 
believers,  should  be  the  very  point  of  their  warmest  sym- 
pathy and  union.  For,  first,  the  doctrine  which  opens 
the  way  for  our  reconciliation  to  God,  ought  to  reconcile 
us  to  each  other,  to  engage  our  common  love,  to  har- 
monize all  our  alienations,  and  to  be  the  bond  of  peace 
between  believers.  And  second,  as  this  is  one  of  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  Christian  theology,  it  must 
constitute  one  of  the  chief  tests  of  the  truth  and  value 
of  that  great  remedial  scheme  of  the  Gospel.  The  doc- 
trine truly  stated  must  furnish  the  strongest  testimony 
for  the  truth  and  the  adequacy  of  the  alleged  Divine 
intervention  for  the  deliverance  of  men  ;  while  any  false 
view  or  perversion  of  the  doctrine  will  at  once  constitute 
the  most  offensive  obstacle  in  the  way  of  a  confiding 
belief,  and  will  make  the  Gospel  most  impotent  where 
it  ought  to  be  most  effective  in  its  power.  Indeed,  our 
consciousness  of  moral  and  spiritual  disease,  our  sense 
of  exposure  under  sin  and  of  our  need  of  redemption, 
the  measure  of  our  love  and  gratitude  to  Christ  as  the 
medium  of  relief,  and  our  views  of  the  character,  attri- 
butes, and  government  of  God,  will  all  be  affected  by 
our  view  of  the  nature  and  method  of  that  remedy 
which  the  Gospel  has  provided. 

We  think  we  express  the  prevailing  sentiment  among 


DOGMATISM  AND   ASSUMPTION.  161 

Unitarians  when  we  say  that  this  is  the  theme  upon 
which  they  love  the  least  to  dispute,  are  the  most  reluc- 
tant to  engage  in  controversy,  and  are  the  most  anxious 
to  have  a  clear  understanding  with  their  opponents  as 
to  the  grounds  of  division  and  the  prospects  of  harmo- 
nizing our  differences.  We  feel  that  the  subject  is  alien 
from  ail  strife,  a  subject  eminently  engaging,  pacifying, 
and  constraining  of  sympathy  and  harmony.  That 
Christ  died  for  us  in  any  sense,  ought  to  exclude  his 
death  from  angry  or  passionate  controversy  among 
those  who  claim  to  share  the  benefits  of  his  sacrifice. 
It  is  a  grievous  thing  to  us  to  be  told  that  we  deny  his 
Atonement,  and  then  to  have  so  severe  a  charge  vindi- 
cated by  forcing  upon  the  Scriptures  a  doctrine  which  we 
are  persuaded  is  not  taught  there,  but  is  an  inference  or 
invention  of  the  mind  of  man.  And  especially  is  it  griev- 
ous to  us  to  be  charged,  as  even  now  we  are  charged,  — 
when  we  affirm  that  we  believe  the  doctrine, — with  using 
words  deceptively,  and  with  trying  to  claim  Orthodox 
sympathy  of  belief  under  double  meanings  of  language 
and  the  perversion  of.  terms  from  their  ordinary  signifi- 
cations. It  is  only  from  the  sense  and  the  smart  of  the 
wrong  thus  inflicted  upon  us,  that  we  still  engage  in  con- 
troversy upon  this  doctrine.  We  say  that  we  do  find  a 
doctrine  of  Atonement  in  the  Scriptures,  and  that  we 
heartily  and  gratefully  believe  it :  that  the  doctrine  exalts 
Christ  as  the  Saviour,  wins  to  him  our  highest  trust  and 
love,  and  brings  us  adoringly  to  praise  that  once  alien- 
ated Father  in  heaven,  whose  love  has  provided  a  means 
for  the  redemption  and  salvation  of  men.  Our  oppo- 
nents, venturing  at  once  to  assume  their  own  infallibility 
in  the  dogmatic  view  which  they  have  formed  of  the 
method  and  efficacy  of  the  Atonement,  and  to  pro- 
nounce upon  the  inadequacy  of  the  faith  which  we 
hold  and  love,  charge  us  with  a  denial  of  the  Scripture 
14* 


162  MODIFICATIONS   OF   ORTHODOXY. 

doctrine  of  Atonement.    Hence  arises  the  issue  between 
us.     We  are  perfectly  ready  to  meet  it. 

On  no  other  of  the  larger  or  the  lesser  topics  that  have 
entered  into  this  controversy  has  there  been  so  wide  a 
variation,  and  so  marked  a  modification  in  the  specific 
terms  of  the  Orthodox  doctrine,  as  on  this  of  the  Atone- 
ment. Without  claiming  that  Orthodoxy  has  made  any 
distinct  approximation  to  our  views,  or  has  essentially 
relieved  what  is  and  has  always  been  to  Unitarians  the 
most  unscriptural  and  offensive  quality  of  its  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement,  we  may  safely  affirm  that  it  has 
essentially  changed  its  own  dogmatic  position.  The 
definition  of  the  Atonement  made  by  the  leading  Or- 
thodox divines  of  the  present  day  is  quite  different  from 
that  given  two  centuries  ago  by  those  whom  they  claim 
to  represent.  Notwithstanding  the  very  bold  assertions 
made  in  the  religious  newspapers  issued  from  week  to 
week  this  current  year,  that  Orthodoxy  has  not  departed 
from  its  standards,  and  that  it  still  holds  to  "  the  sub- 
stance "  of  the  Calvinistic  formulas,  it  is  impossible  for 
us  to  assent  to  the  assertions,  when  we  compare  pages 
of  the  old  divinity  on  our  shelves  with  the  recent  produc- 
tions of  some  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  Orthodox 
communions.  Would  Cotton,  Hooker,  Shepherd,  Ed- 
wards, or  Hopkins  have  admitted,  with  Dr.  E.  Beecher, 
that  the  system  of  Orthodoxy  is  utterly  inconsistent  with 
the  principles  of  honor  and  justice  in  the  Divine  govern- 
ment ?  Or  with  Professor  Park,  that  the  rhetoric  of 
Orthodoxy  needs  to  be  toned  down,  if  one  would  har- 
monize it  with  logical  truth?  Or  with  Dr.  Bushnell, 
that  the  death  of  Christ  is  a  dramatic  scene,  in  which 
we  must  discriminate  between  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  meaning  ?  Ask  the  aged  persons  among  us 
who  used  to  listen  to  Orthodox  preaching,  if  its  tone, 
and  even  its  substance,  are  not  changed. 

Therefore,  the  issue  between  us  now  is  not  exactly 


SOFTENED   CONSTRUCTIONS.  163 

what  it  was  even  fifty  years  ago.  Those  terrific  and 
harrowing  representations  of  some  of  the  Divine  attri- 
butes which  were  current  in  the  old  divinity,  do  not  enter 
into  modern  preaching.  Those  dramatic  representations 
of  the  covenant  work  between  God  and  Christ,  involv- 
ing stipulations  as  to  what  the  Father  should  require  to 
soothe  his  wrath  and  accept  as  the  ransom  of  human 
souls,  and  as  to  how  much  the  Son  should  suffer,  are 
now  withdrawn,  either  in  deference  to  the  exactions  of 
good  taste,  or  as  a  consequence  of  an  actual  change  of 
opinion.  Some  of  the  many  sharp  points  of  the  Ortho- 
dox doctrine  are  worn  smooth.  Vague  terms  which 
may  be  unobjectionable  are  substituted  for  very  shocking 
terms  once  in  common  use.  It  is  getting  to  be  difficult 
now  to  discuss  the  real  issue  between  the  parties,  with- 
out a  vast  deal  of  definition  and  interpretation,  and 
clearing  up  of  the  outworks  of  language  and  ideas. 
We  take  in  our  hands  some  of  the  modern  essays  on 
the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  and  as  we  begin  the 
perusal  it  would  seem  as  if  some  of  the  views  most 
antagonistic  to  our  own  convictions  were  about  to  re- 
ceive a  most  offensive  statement,  leading  farther  and 
farther  as  the  argument  progressed  to  a  perfectly  heathen 
conclusion.  But  no !  They  melt  and  soften  and  be- 
come very  yielding,  till,  what  with  dramatic  uses  of 
language  and  shapings  of  thought  and  governmental 
theories,  the  sternness  of  the  reader's  brow  is  relaxed, 
his  dissent  js  soothed,  a  degree  of  sympathy,  a  stage  of 
conviction,  is  wrought  within  him,  and  he  asks,  Is  the 
old  doctrine  reduced  down  to  this  ? 

But  what  is  the  doctrine  ?  and  where  does  the  contro- 
versy upon  it  between  Unitarianism  and  Orthodoxy  com- 
mence ?  and  in  what  directions  do  the  parties  diverge  ? 
and  what  is  the  substance  of  their  difference  ?  We  shall 
soon  have  to  ask  here,  as  we  have  asked  concerning  the 
two  previous  topics  which  we  have  discussed,   What 


164  ATONEMENT  IS   RECONCILIATION. 

was  the  doctrine  when  the  controversy  opened,  and 
before  it  had  been  reduced  to  simpler  and  more  vague 
and  elusive  terms  as  the  result  of  controversy  ? 

The  English  word,  the  noun  atonement,  occurs  but 
once  in  our  version  of  the  New  Testament  (Romans 
v.  11).  No  respectable  scholar  or  writer  would  now 
affirm  or  argue,  —  as  was  once  affirmed  and  argued,  — 
that  the  original  word  in  the  Greek  should  here  be  ren- 
dered by  an  English  word  conveying  the  sense  of  compen- 
sation, commutation,  or  expiation.*  The  verb  to  which 
the  noun  is  related  means,  and  is  translated,  to  reconcile, 
and  atonement,  or  at-onement,  is  reconciliation,  as  in 
other  instances  it  is  rendered.  An  explicit  avowal  to  this 
effect  has  recently  been  made  by  Professor  Pond  of  the 
Bangor  Theological  Seminary :  f  "  An  atonement,  there- 
fore, in  the  sense  of  our  translators,  is  a  reconciliation. 
But  the  word  has  undergone  a  slight  change  of  meaning 
within  the  last  two  hundred  years.  As  now  used,  it 
denotes  not  so  much  a  reconciliation,  as  that  which  is 
done  to  open  and  prepare  the  way  for  a  reconciliation. 
As  used  by  Evangelical  Christians,  it  refers  to  what  has 
been  done  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  to  open  a  way  for 
the  recovery  and  salvation  of  sinful  men,  that  so  a  rec- 
onciliation may  be  effected  between  them  and  their 
Maker."  It  is  something  to  have  the  fact  clearly  and 
fully  admitted  that  the  Apostle's  word  does  not  imply 
the  sense  which  has  long  been  associated  in  controversy 
with  the  word  atonement,  a  sense  which  Dr.  Webster 
has  very  unwarrantably  introduced  into  his  English 
Dictionary.  Our  literature  in  the  age  of  Shakespeare 
will  show  the  signification  of  the  word  then  to  have 
been   reconciliation.      The  perversion   of  the   Scripture 

*  Dr.  Woods  says :  "  The  word  atonement  has  become  ambiguous,  its 
common  use  being  somewhat  different  from  its  use  in  Scripture."  (Works, 
Vol.  II.  p.  493.) 

t  See  his  Article  in  Bibliotheca  Sacra  for  January,  1856,  p.  130. 


SCOPE   OF  THE  DOCTRINE.  165 

doctrine  gave  to  the  word  atonement  the  new  use 
which  it  begins  to  have  in  the  literature  of  the  age  of 
Queen  Ann.*  We  might,  indeed,  raise  a  question  as 
to  the  perfect  accuracy  of  the  signification  which  Dr. 
Pond  says  that  Orthodoxy  now  assigns  to  the  word. 
We  certainly  should  wish  to  include  under  "  what  has 
been  done  by  Jesus  Christ,"  what  was  said  by  him,  with 
the  same  design  of  opening  a  way  for  reconciliation. 

The  doctrine  of  Atonement  or  reconciliation  is  one  of 
a  large  sweep  and  compass,  and  the  first  condition  for 
any  fair  and  satisfactory  treatment  of  it  is  to  secure  the 
discussion  of  it,  at  the  very  start,  against  all  such  influ- 
ence from  definitions  or  limitations,  as  will  surely  give 
us  a  part  instead  of  the  whole  doctrine.  The  question 
is,  not  what  theory  about  it  will  the  thought  or  the  reason 
of  man  adopt  or  approve,  but  what  do  the  Scriptures 
teach  us  concerning  the  doctrine,  as  it  is  exclusively  a 
doctrine  of  revelation  ?  The  sweep  of  the  doctrine  em- 
braces a  great  many  contingencies  dependent  upon  a 
duplication  or  an  alternative  connected  with  all  of  the 
large  elements  which  enter  into  it.  Thus  Christ  may 
be  regarded  either  as  a  medium  for  announcing  terms 
of  reconciliation  from  God,  or  as  an  agent  for  facilitating 
and  accomplishing  such  a  reconciliation ;  or  he  may  be 
both  the  announcer  and  the  agent  of  the  process  of  rec- 
onciliation.    The  Orthodox  doctrine  assumes  that  sin  is 

*  "  Lod.    Is  there  division  'twixt  thy  lord  and  Cassio  ? 

"  Des.    A  most  unhappy  one ;  I  would  do  much 
T"  atone  them,  for  the  love  I  bear  to  Cassio." 

Shaksp.  Othello,  Act.  IV.  Sc.  1. 
"  Or  each  atone  his  guilty  love  with  life."  —  Pope. 
The  transition  between  the  two  meanings  is  well  marked  in  Milton : 

"  Man, 

once  dead  in  sins  and  lost, 

Atonement  for  himself  or  offering  meet, 
Indebted  and  undone,  hath  none  to  bring." 

Par.  Lost,  Book  III.  1.  234. 


166         ELEMENTS  OF  THE  CONTROVERSY. 

an  infinite  wrong,  and  deserves  an  infinite  punishment  or 
requires  an  infinite  expiation,  because  it  is  committed 
against  an  Infinite  Being.  This  is  looking  at  facts  from 
one  point  of  view,  namely,  the  Divine.  But  the  alterna- 
tive point  of  view  would  suggest  the  question,  How 
can  sin  be  of  such  infinite  demerit,  seeing  that  it  is  com- 
mitted by  a  finite  and  limited  being  ?  Another  dupli- 
cation of  issues  presents  itself  in  the  rivalry  of  claims 
on  our  fullest  affections  raised  by  the  confusion  in  the 
Orthodox  theology  which  refers  the  prime  movement 
for  our  redemption  to  the  love  of  God,  or  to  the  inter- 
position of  Christ.  This  confusion  is  not  removed  by 
the  interchange  of  such  references,  or  by  the  attempt  to 
prove  them  identical.  When  Calvinism  tells  us  that 
the  Father  chose  and  appointed  and  qualified  the  Son  to 
be  our  Redeemer,  and  also  that  the  Son  offered  himself 
to  be  our  sacrifice,  one  who  would  have  clear  thoughts, 
so  far  as  he  has  any,  must  ask,  Which  of  these  two  state- 
ments would  Orthodoxy  have  us  accept  ?  Again,  Was 
Christ's  death  an  actual  expiation,  equivalent  in  anguish 
to  all  the  sufferings  that  sinners  would  have  endured,  or 
was  it  a  demonstrative  exhibition  of  a  legal  penalty  ? 
Once  more,  Did  or  did  not  the  Divine  nature  of  Christ 
share  in  his  sufferings  ?  Still  other  alternatives  of  doc- 
trine present  themselves  in  the  divergencies  of  Orthodox 
teaching  as  to  the  relations  between  the  Divine  Justice 
and  the  Divine  Mercy,  by  which  God  might  or  might  not 
freely  forgive,  while  his  law  might  or  might  not  freely 
remit ;  and  in  the  discordant  opinions  as  to  whether  a 
knowledge  of  the  sacrifice  to  be  made,  and  now  made  by 
Christ,  was  and  is  necessary  or  not  necessary  to  all  who 
share  in  its  benefits.  And  finally,  Is  the  Atonement 
limited  or  unlimited  in  its  efficacy  ?  These  are  all  com- 
plications of  the  controversy  for  us,  and  the  grounds  of 
minor  controversies  among  the  Orthodox  themselves. 
There  is  no  chapter  in  the  old   Confession  of  Faith 


THE    NEW   ENGLAND   DOCTRINE.  167 

of  the  New  England  churches,  which  is  still  the  stand- 
ard for  the  Orthodox  Congregationalists,  devoted  spe- 
cifically to  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  The  word 
itself  does  not  occur  in  that  formula,  nor  even  in  the 
Westminster  Catechism.  The  substantial  Orthodox 
doctrine  under  which  our  fathers  were  educated,  and 
which  was  had  in  view  at  the  opening  of  the  Unitarian 
controversy,  is  found  in  Chapter  VIII.  of  the  Confession, 
under  the  title  u  Of  Christ  the  Mediator,"  as  follows  :  — 
"  It  pleased  God  in  his  eternal  purpose  to  choose  and 
ordain  the  Lord  Jesus,  his  only  begotten  Son,  according 
to  a  covenant  made  between  them  both,  to  be  the  medi- 
ator between  God  and  man:  the  prophet,  priest,  and  king, 
the  head  and  Saviour  of  his  Church,  the  heir  of  all  things, 
and  judge  of  the  world:  unto  whom  he  did  from  all 
eternity  give  a  people  to  be  his  seed,  and  to  be  by  him 
in  time  redeemed,  called,  justified,  sanctified,  and  glori- 
fied. The  Son  of  God,  the  second  person  in  the  Trinity, 
being  very  and  eternal  God  of  one  substance,  and  equal 
with  the  Father,  did,  when  the  fulness  of  time  was  come, 
take  upon  him  man's  nature,  with  all  the  essential  prop- 
erties and  common  infirmities  thereof,  yet  without  sin ; 
being  conceived  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
womb  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  of  her  substance,  — which 
person  is  very  God  and  very  man,  yet  one  Christ,  the 
only  mediator  between  God  and  man  ;  —  was  sanctified 
and  anointed  with  the  Holy  Spirit  above  measure,  — 
that  he  might  be  thoroughly  furnished  to  execute  the 
office  of  a  mediator  and  surety :  which  office  he  took 
not  unto  himself,  but  was  thereunto  called  by  his  Father, 
—  and  did  most  willingly  undertake ;  which  that  he 
might  discharge,  he  was  made  under  the  law,  and  did 
perfectly  fulfil  it,  and  underwent  the  punishment  due  to 
us,  which  we  should  have  borne  and  suffered,  being  made 
sin  and  a  curse  for  us,  enduring  most  grievous  torments 
immediately  from  God  in   his  soul,  and  most  painful 


168  CONFUSION   OF  TERMS. 

sufferings  in  his  body,  was  crucified  and  died,  was  buried 
and  remained  under  the  power  of  death:  —  by  his  per- 
fect obedience  and  sacrifice  of  himself,  which  he  through 
the  Eternal  Spirit  once  offered  up  unto  God,  he  hath 
fully  satisfied  the  justice  of  God,  and  purchased  not 
only  reconciliation,  but  an  everlasting  inheritance  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  for  all  those  whom  the  Father 
hath  given  unto  him.  Although  the  work  of  redemption 
was  not  actually  wrought  by  Christ  till  after  his  incarna- 
tion, yet  the  virtue,  efficacy,  and  benefits  thereof  were 
communicated  to  the  elect  in  all  ages  successively  from 
the  beginning  of  the  world,"  &c. 

We  must  bear  as  well  as  we  can  the  confusion  of  terms 
and  the  irreconcilable  statements  in  this  formula ;  they 
are  some  of  the  dreary  conditions  to  which  any  one  must 
submit  in  reading  even,  and  still  more  in  attempting  to 
digest,  the  schemes  of  divinity  wrought  out  from  the  fan- 
cies of  theologians.  Here  we  are  told  of  a  covenant 
between  two  persons,  when  in  fact  there  was  but  One ; 
of  a  Mediator  between  two  parties,  who  was  himself  one 
of  those  parties  ;  of  an  office  "  willingly  undertaken"  by 
the  Son,  which,  however,  tl  he  did  not  take  upon  him- 
self," because  "  he  was  called  to  it  by  the  Father  "  ;  of  a 
being  who  was  essentially  the  Supreme  God,  who  yet 
"  was  sanctified  and  anointed  with  the  Holy  Spirit "  ; 
of  a  being  compounded  of  Deity  and  humanity,  in  order 
that  the  union  of  Deity  might  exalt  a  sacrifice  in  which, 
however,  only  the  human  nature  suffered ;  of  Christ's 
thus  "  purchasing  from  God "  those  whom  God  u  had 
given "  to  him  from  all  eternity ;  and  finally,  we  read 
that  the  death  of  Christ  is  made  to  stand  as  a  substitute 
or  equivalent  for  the  eternal  torments  and  the  remorseful 
heart-sufferings  of  millions  of  condemned  sinners.  If  we 
pass  by  these  confused  and  inconsistent  terms  in  the  old 
formula  of  the  doctrine  of  Redemption,  our  attention  is 
fixed,  and  our  protest  is  raised,  by  the  following  sen- 


VIEWS   OF    CALVIN.  169 

tences  in  the  Confession :  "  Christ  underwent  the  pun- 
ishment due  to  us"  ;  "enduring  most  grievous  torments 
immediately  from  God  in  his  soul,"  "  he  hath  fully  satis- 
fied the  justice  of  God,"  and '"he  hath  purchased  recon- 
ciliation." The  statements  and  inferences  of  doctrine 
in  these  sentences  formerly  constituted  the  staple  matter 
of  Calvinistic  teaching  concerning  the  redeeming  work 
of  Christ :  they  present  to  us  the  essential,  the  peculiar, 
the  characteristic  features  of  Calvinism.  One  who  hon- 
estly assumes  the  name  of  a  Calvinist  will  unflinchingly 
accept  these  essential  elements  of  his  creed,  and  will 
make  no  adroit  attempts  to  evade  them.  Any  one  who 
takes  the  name  of  a  Calvinist,  and  yet  endeavors  to 
soften  or  explain  away  the  manifest  meaning  of  these 
sentences  will  certainly  act  more  candidly  if  he  will 
change  his  own  name,  which  he  is  at  liberty  to  do,  and 
give  over  trifling  with  written  formulas,  which  he  is  not 
at  liberty  to  do.  Of  late  the  sharper  phraseology,  the 
positive  and  unqualified  statements  which  we  find  in 
the  above  sentences,  have  yielded  to  a  less  direct  im- 
plication of  more  or  less  of  their  substance,  and  to  an 
infinite  variety  of  softening  constructions  put  upon  them. 
If,  in  the  course  of  this  controversy,  some  nominal 
Calvinists  had  not  ventured  to  deny  the  truthfulness  of 
the  representations  made  by  Unitarians  as  to  the  essen- 
tial views  expressed  by  Calvin  himself,  one  would  hardly 
suppose  that  any  question  could  be  raised  on  this  point. 
The  following  sentences,  all  drawn  from  the  sixteenth 
chapter  of  the  second  book  of  Calvin's  Institutes,  are 
a  fair  exhibition  of  his  theology  on  this  point :  "  That 
Christ  has  taken  upon  himself  and  suffered  the  punish- 
ment which  by  the  righteous  judgment  of  God  impend- 
ed over  all  sinners;  that  by  his  blood  he  has  expiated 
those  crimes  which  render  them  odious  to  God;  that 
by  this  expiation  God  the  Father  has  been  satisfied  and 
duly  atoned ;  that  by  this  intercessor  his  wrath  has  been 
15 


170  CALVIN  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

appeased ;  that  this  is  the  foundation  of  peace  between 
God  and  men ;  that  this  is  the  bond  of  his  benevolence 
towards  them."  "  Indeed,  we  must  admit  that  it  was 
impossible  for  God  to  be  truly  appeased  in  any  other 
way,  than  by  Christ  renouncing  all  concern  for  himself, 
and  submitting  and  devoting  himself  entirely  to  his 
will."  u  For  we  ought  particularly  to  remember  this 
satisfaction,  that  we  may  not  spend  our  whole  lives  in 
terror  and  anxiety,  as  though  we  were  pursued  by  the 
righteous  vengeance  of  God,  which  the  Son  of  God  has 
transferred  to  himself."  "  For  the  Son  of  God,  though 
perfectly  free  from  all  sin,  nevertheless  assumed  the  dis- 
grace and  ignominy  of  our  iniquities,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  arrayed  us  in  his  purity."  "  Christ  at  his  death 
was  offered  to  the  Father  as  an  expiatory  sacrifice,  in 
order  that,  a  complete  atonement  being  made  by  his 
oblation,  we  may  no  longer  dread  the  Divine  wrath." 
M  If  Christ  had  merely  died  a  corporeal  death,  no  end 
would  have  been  accomplished  by  it ;  it  was  requisite, 
also,  that  he  should  feel  the  severity  of  the  Divine  ven- 
geance, in  order  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God  and  sat- 
isfy his  justice.  Hence  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  con- 
tend with  the  powers  of  hell  and  the  horror  of  eternal 
death."  "  Christ  suffered  in  his  soul  the  dreadful  tor- 
ments of  a  person  condemned  and  irretrievably  lost." 
u  And,  indeed,  if  his  soul  had  experienced  no  punish- 
ment, he  would  have  been  only  a  Redeemer  for  the 
body."  "  Whence  we  may  conclude  what  dreadful  and 
horrible  agonies  he  must  have  suffered,  while  he  was 
conscious  of  standing  at  the  tribunal  of  God  accused  as 
a  criminal  on  our  account."  * 

The  Assembly's  Catechism  tells  us  that  "  Christ  was 
a  sacrifice   to    Divine  Justice."     The  old  divines,  who 

*  That  we  might  not  intensify  by  our  own  version  any  of  the  expressions 
used  by  Calvin,  we  have  adopted  the  translation  of  the  Institutes  published 
by  the  Presbyterian  Board  at  Philadelphia. 


FLAVEL   ON   REDEMPTION.  171 

made  the  Catechism  the  expository  rule  of  their  faith, 
were  wont  to  receive  its  statements  literally.  They  held 
themselves  bound  to  an  unflinching  fidelity  to  its  doc- 
trines. We  will  take,  as  an  illustration  of  this  remark, 
the  example  of  that  pious  Puritan  minister,  John  Flavel, 
son  of  Rev.  Richard  Flavel,  who  entered  upon  his  work 
in  Dartmouth,  Old  England,  just  two  centuries  ago,  and 
whose  devotional  spirit  and  writings  have  made  him  a 
favorite  among  the  disciples  of  Orthodoxy  to  this  day.* 
He  published  an  Exposition  of  the  Assembly's  Cate- 
chism, and  had  no  distinction  among  his  brethren  as 
one  who  forced  it  beyond  a  fair  construction  of  its  doc- 
trinal statements.  It  will  be  seen  by  a  few  extracts 
from  his  sermons,  how  boldly  and  literally  he  was  dis- 
posed to  accept  all  that  was  implied  in  the  Calvinistic 
view  of  the  Covenant  of  Redemption.  Our  extracts  are 
made  from  the  folio  edition  of  his  works,  Edinburgh, 
1731.  It  should  be  observed  that  he  aims  to  support  all 
his  positions  by  references  to  texts  in  Scripture,  made 
after  the  usage  of  his  time,  without  the  slightest  recog- 
nition of  any  just  principles  of  biblical  criticism,  and 
with  an  entire  disregard  of  the  connection  in  which  the 
passages  quoted  stand  in  the  original. 

FlavePs  third  sermon  is  on  "  Christ's  Compact  with 
the  Father  for  the  Recovery  of  the  Elect."  Isaiah  liii. 
12. 

"  Doctrine,  that  the  business  of  man's  salvation  was 
transacted  upon  covenant  terms  betwixt  the  Father  and 
the  Son  from  all  eternity."  "  The  substance  of  this 
Covenant  of  Redemption  is  dialogue-wise  exprest  to  us 
in  Isaiah  xlix.  Having  told  God  how  ready  and  fit  he 
was  for  his  service,  he  will  know  of  Him  what  reward 
he  shall  have  for  his  work,  for  he  resolves  his  blood  shall 

*  The  late  Dr.  Alexander,  the  Princeton  Professor,  wrote,  "To  John 
Flavel  I  certainly  owe  more  than  to  any  uninspired  author."  —  Life,  by  his 
Son,  p.  47. 


172  FLAVEL   ON   REDEMPTION. 

not  be  sold  at  low  and  cheap  rates.  Hereupon  the  Fa- 
ther offers  him  the  elect  of  Israel  for  his  reward,  bidding 
low  at  first,  (as  they  that  make  bargains  use  to  do,)  and 
only  offers  him  that  small  remnant  still  intending  to 
bid  higher.  But  Christ  will  not  be  satisfied  with  these  ; 
he  values  his  Blood  higher  than  so.  Therefore  he  is 
brought  in  complaining,  'J  have  labored  in  vain,  and 
spent  my  strength  for  naughV  This  is  but  a  small  re- 
ward for  so  great  sufferings  as  I  must  undergo ;  my 
blood  is  much  more  worth  than  this  comes  to,  and  will 
be  sufficient  to  redeem  all  the  elect  dispersed  among  the 
isles  of  the  Gentiles,  as  well  as  the  lost  sheep  of  the 
house  of  Israel.  Hereupon  the  Father  comes  up  higher, 
and  tells  him  He  intends  to  reward  him  better  than  so." 
"  The  persons  transacting  and  dealing  with  each  other 
in  this  covenant  are  great  persons,  God  the  Father,  and 
God  the  Son :  the  former  as  a  creditor,  and  the  latter  as 
a  surety.  The  Father  stands  upon  satisfaction,  the  Son 
engages  to  give  it."  "  And  forasmuch  as  the  Father 
knew  it  was  a  hard  and  difficult  work  His  Son  was  to 
undertake,  a  work  that  would  have  broken  the  backs  of 
all  the  angels  in  heaven  and  men  on  earth,  had  they 
engaged  in  it,  therefore  He  promiseth  to  stand  by  him, 
and  assist  and  strengthen  him  for  it."  We  read  that  the 
Father  also  agreed  to  furnish  Christ  with  all  the  neces- 
sary qualifications  for  his  work,  and  to  reward  him  for 
accomplishing  it.  "  The  Father  so  far  trusted  Christ, 
that  upon  the  credit  of  his  promise  to  come  into  the 
world,  and  in  the  fulness  of  time  to  become  a  sacrifice 
for  the  elect,  He  saved  all  the  Old  Testament  saints, 
whose  faith  also  respected  a  Christ  to  come."  (pp.  6,  7.) 
In  the  next  sermon,  on  John  iii.  16,  we  read :  — 
"  God's  giving  of  Christ  implies  his  delivering  him 
into  the  hands  of  justice  to  be  punished:  even  as  con- 
demned persons  are  by  sentence  of  law  given  or  deliv- 
ered into  the  hands  of  executioners.     The  Lord,  when 


GENUINE   CALVINISM.  173 

the  time  was  come  that  Christ  must  suffer,  did  as  it 
were  say,  '  O  all  ye  roaring  waves  of  my  incensed  jus- 
tice, now  swell  as  high  as  heaven,  and  go  over  his  soul 
and  body :  sink  him  to  the  bottom ;  let  him  go,  like 
Jonah,  his  type,  into  the  belly  of  hell,  unto  the  roots  of 
the  mountains.  Come,  all  ye  raging  storms  that  I  have 
reserved  for  this  day  of  wrath,  beat  upon  him,  beat  him 
down.  Go,  justice,  put  him  upon  the  rack,  torment  him 
in  every  part,' "  &c.  (p.  9.)  This  terrible  vengeance  is 
represented  as  but  fulfilling  what  the  Father  in  the  com- 
pact had  announced  to  the  Son,  thus :  "  My  Son,  if 
thou  undertake  for  them,  thou  must  reckon  to  pay  the 
last  mite  ;  expect  no  abatements ;  if  I  spare  them,  I  will 
not  spare  thee."  (p.  8.)  "  To  wrath,  to  the  wrath  of 
an  infinite  God,  without  mixture,  to  the  very  torments 
of  hell,  was  Christ  delivered,  and  that  by  the  hand  of  his 
own  Father."     (p.  10.) 

With  equal  plainness  does  this  earnest  and  outspoken 
Calvinist  insist,  in  his  eighth  sermon,  that  God  could 
not  exercise  his  mercy  without  satisfaction  to  his  justice. 
"  He,  therefore,  that  will  be  a  Mediator  of  Reconciliation 
betwixt  God  and  man,  must  bring  God  a  price  in  his 
hand,  and  that  adequate  to  the  offence  and  wrong  done 
Him,  else  He  will  not  treat  about  peace."  (p.  21.)  "  Our 
Mediator,  like  Jonah  his  type,  seeing  the  stormy  sea  of 
God's  wrath  working  tempestuously,  and  ready  to  swal- 
low us  up,  cast  in  himself  to  appease  the  storm."  (p. 
22.)  More  distinctly  still  we  read  in  the  twelfth  ser- 
mon :  "  The  design  and  end  of  this  oblation  was  to 
atone,  pacify,  and  reconcile  God,  by  giving  him  a  full 
and  adequate  compensation  or  satisfaction  for  the  sins 
of  these  his  elect.  From  this  oblation  Christ  made  of 
himself  to  God  for  our  sins,  we  infer  the  inflexible  sever- 
ity of  Divine  justice,  which  could  (  be  no  other  way 
diverted  from  us  and  appeased,  but  by  the  blood  of 
Christ.  And  though  he  brake  out  upon  the  cross  in 
15* 


174  FLAVEL   ON   A    LIMITED   ATONEMENT. 

that  heart-rending  complaint,  l  My  God!  my  God!  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me?'  yet  no  abatement:  justice  will 
not  bend  in  the  least,  but,  having  to  do  with  him  on  this 
account,  resolves  to  fetch  its  pennyworths  out  of  his 
blood."  (p.  35.)  In  the  fourteenth  sermon  Flavel  says  : 
"  Only  the  blood  of  God  is  found  an  equivalent  price 
for  the  redemption  of  souls."    (p.  41.) 

Conformed  to  these  representations  is  Flavel's  descrip- 
tion of  the  actual  sufferings  endured  by  Christ,  thus : 
"  The  wrath  of  an  infinite,  dreadful  God  beat  him  down 
to  the  dust.  His  body  full  of  pain  and  exquisite  tor- 
tures in  every  part.  Not  a  member  or  sense  but  was 
the  seat  and  subject  of  torment."  (p.  88.)  "  His  cry  was 
like  the  perpetual  shriek  of  them  that  are  cast  away  for 
ever.  Yea,  in  sufferings  at  this  time  in  his  soul,  equiv- 
alent to  all  that  which  our  souls  should  have  suffered 
there  to  all  eternity."  (p.  102.)  "  As  it  was  all  the  wrath 
of  God  that  lay  upon  Christ,  so  it  was  wrath  aggravated 
in  divers  respects,  beyond  that  which  the  damned  them- 
selves do  suffer."   (p.  106.) 

One  other  quotation  will  prove  that  the  author  did 
not  believe  that  God  would  grant  to  Christ  anything 
beyond  the  covenant  as  it  embraced  the  elect.  The 
extract  is  in  strange  contrast  with  admissions  made  by 
eminent  champions  of  Orthodoxy  at  the  present  day,  in 
allowing  an  unlimited  atonement  and  the  efficacy  of 
Christ's  death  for  millions  who  have  or  have  had  no 
knowledge  of  him.  It  is  from  Sermon  XV. :  "  Hence 
we  infer  the  impossibility  of  their  salvation  that  know 
not  Christ,  nor  have  interest  in  his  blood.  Neither  hea- 
thens, nor  merely  nominal  Christians,  can  inherit  heaven. 
I  know  some  are  very  indulgent  to  the  heathen,  and 
many  formal  Christians  are  but  too  much  so  to  them- 
selves. But  union  by  faith  with  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
only  way  revealed  in  Scripture  by  which  we  hope  to 
come  to  the  heavenly  inheritance.    I  know  it  seems  hard 


EDWARDS    ON   REDEMPTION.  175 

that  such  brave  men  as  some  of  the  heathens  were 
should  be  damned.  But  the  Scripture  knows  no  other 
way  to  glory  but  Christ  put  on  and  applied  by  faith. 
And  it  is  the  common  suffrage  of  modern  sound  divines, 
that  no  man,  by  the  sole  conduct  of  Nature,  without  the 
knowledge  of  Christ,  can  be  saved."   (p.  44.) 

Thus  the  old  Calvinistic  construction  of  the  doctrine 
was,  that  the  obedience  of  Christ  takes  the  place  of  our 
lack  of  obedience ;  that  he  became  to  God  the  personal 
substitute  for  condemned  sinners ;  that  by  the  imputa- 
tion of  our  transgressions  to  him,  he  endured  the  suffer- 
ing threatened  upon  us ;  and  that,  by  bearing  the  just 
penalty  of  an  outraged  law,  he  discharged  our  indebt- 
edness to  it,  and  purchased  our  redemption  from  the 
Lawgiver.  It  would  be  possible,  if  time  and  space  al- 
lowed, to  trace  by  a  chain  of  quotations  from  Orthodox 
divines  the  course  of  softening  and  modifying  specula- 
tions which  have  reduced  the  old  doctrine  to  the  mildest 
form  of  the  governmental  theory,  presenting  the  elder 
Edwards  and  Dr.  Hopkins  as  the  mediums  for  working 
the  prominent  changes  in  the  use  of  terms  or  in  the  con- 
struction put  upon  them.  We  might  thus  easily  exhibit, 
were  it  worth  our  while,  all  the  shadings  off,  if  we  should 
not  rather  say  the  shadings  over,  of  the  old  doctrine. 
Edwards  very  ingeniously  remarks  :  "  Most  of  the  words 
which  are  used  in  this  affair  have  various  significa- 
tions." *  The  following  sentences  from  this  eminent 
divine  will  exhibit  his  views  of  "  the  work  of  Redemp- 
tion " :  "  There  is  no  mercy  exercised  towards  man  but 
what  is  obtained  through  Christ's  intercession."  (p.  26.) 
"  For  when  man  [Adam]  had  sinned,  God  the  Father 
would  have  no  more  to  do  with  man  immediately ;  he 
would  no  more  have  any  immediate  concern  with  this 
world  of  mankind  that  had  apostatized  from,  and  re- 

*  Works,  edition  of  1808,  Vol.  II.  p.  190. 


176  DR.   HOPKINS   ON  REDEMPTION. 

belled  against  him."  (p.  27.)  "  All  is  done  by  the 
price  that  Christ  lays  down.  But  the  price  that  Christ 
lays  down  does  two  things.  It  pays  our  debt,  and  so  it 
satisfies.  By  its  intrinsic  value,  and  by  the  agreement 
between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  it  procures  a  title  to 
us  for  happiness,  and  so*  it  merits.  The  satisfaction  of 
Christ  is  to  free  us  from  misery,  and  the  merit  of  Christ 
is  to  purchase  happiness  for  us."  (p.  190.)  "  The  satis- 
faction of  Christ  consists  in  his  answering  the  demands 
of  the  law  on  man,  which  were  consequent  on  the 
breach  of  the  law.  These  were  answered  by  suffering 
the  penalty  of  the  law.  The  merit  of  Christ  consists  in 
what  he  did  to  answer  the  demands  of  the  law,  which 
were  prior  to  man's  breach  of  the  law,  or  to  fulfil  what 
the  law  demanded  before  man  sinned,  which  was  obe- 
dience." (p.  191.) 

There  is  a  savor  of  good  old  Mr.  Flavel's  view  of  the 
"  covenant  work "  in  the  following  account  given  of  it 
by  the  excellent  Dr.  Hopkins :  "  It  is  evident  from  Scrip- 
ture, as  well  as  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  that  there 
was  a  mutual  agreement  and  engagement  between  the 
Father  and  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  respecting 
the  redemption  of  man,  by  which  the  distinct  part  which 
each  person  in  the  Trinity  was  to  act  was  fixed  and 
undertaken.  This  mutual  agreement  is  of  the  nature  of 
a  covenant  and  engagement  with  each  other  to  perform 
the  different  parts  of  this  great  work  which  were  as- 
signed to  them.  This  is  an  eternal  covenant  without 
beginning,  as  is  the  existence  of  the  triune  God,  and  as 
are  all  the  divine  purposes  and  decrees.  The  second 
person  was  engaged  to  become  incarnate,  —  to  do  and 
suffer  all  that  was  necessary  for  the  salvation  of  men. 
The  Father  promised  that,  on  his  consenting  to  take 
upon  him  the  character  and  work  of  a  Mediator  and 
Redeemer,  he  should  be  every  way  furnished  and  assist- 
ed to  go  through  with  the  work ;  that  he  should  have 


DR.    HOPKINS    ON   REDEMPTION.  177 

power  to  save  an  elect  number  of  mankind,  and  form  a 
church  and  kingdom  most  perfect  and  glorious.  In 
order  to  accomplish  this,  all  things  —  all  power  in  heaven 
and  earth  —  should  be  given  to  him,  until  redemption 
was  completed.  And  then  he  should  reign  in  the  exer- 
cise of  all  his  offices  as  Mediator,  in  his  Church  and 
kingdom  for  ever."  After  quoting  passages  of  Scripture 
by  the  old  method  to  authenticate  these  views,  Dr. 
Hopkins  adds :  "  Though  in  the  passages  of  Scripture 
which  have  been  mentioned,  and  others  of  the  same 
kind,  the  third  person  in  the  Trinity,  the  Holy  Spirit,  is 
not  expressly  mentioned  as  covenanting  or  engaging  to 
perform  any  part  of  this  work,  yet  he  is  necessarily  un- 
derstood as  concerned  and  included  in  this  covenant,  as 
he  is  in  the  Holy  Scripture  everywhere  represented  as 
acting  an  equal  part  in  the  redemption  of  man,  and 
therefore  must  be  considered  as  taking  that  particular 
part  by  consent  and  agreement."  *  Were  it  not  for  the 
more  dramatic  view  of  the  "  covenant,"  not  between  God 
and  man,  but  between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  which 
we  have  already  quoted  from  Flavel,  and  which  might 
be  paralleled  from  other  divines,  we  might  affirm  that 
Dr.  Hopkins  was  not  wholly  destitute  of  the  imagina- 
tive faculty  in  having  conjured  up  the  above  conceit,  for 
which  the  Bible  is  not  responsible.  His  ingenuity  in 
apologizing  for  the  apparent  neglect  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  not  the  least  striking  element  in  his  description.  He 
is  explicit  in  stating  a  limited  atonement,  limited  at 
least  in  its  actual  work.  a  Redemption,"  he  says,  "  does 
not  extend  to  all  sinful,  fallen  creatures,  but  many  are 
left  to  suffer  the  just  consequence  of  their  rebellion  in 
everlasting  punishment.  It  is  expressly  and  repeatedly 
declared  in  divine  revelation,  that  a  part  of  mankind 
shall   be   punished   for  ever."    (p.    248.)      Anticipatory 

*  Professor  Park's  edition  of  Hopkins's  Works,  Vol.  I.  pp.  356  -  358. 


178  DR.  HOPKINS   ON  REDEMPTION. 

hints  of  the  "  governmental  theory,"  as  now  held  by 
a  philosophical  school  of  Orthodox  divines,  are  to  be 
found  scattered  over  Dr.  Hopkins's  pages.  He  speaks 
of  what  is  consistent  or  inconsistent  with  "rectoral 
righteousness."  He  says :  "  The  sufferings  of  Christ 
answer  the  same  end  with  respect  to  law  and  divine 
government,  that  otherwise  must  be  answered  by  the 
eternal  destruction  of  the  sinner."  (p.  328.)  He  says 
the  blood  shed  upon  the  cross  "  was  the  blood  of  God." 
(p.  282.)  Dr.  Hopkins  is  generally  very  scrupulous  and 
careful  to  sustain  his  own  strongest  assertions  by  refer- 
ences to  passages  of  Scripture,  which,  however  strangely 
or  fancifully  he  may  quote  them,  and  however  unjustifi- 
able and  inapplicable  the  use  he  makes  of  them,  prove 
at  least  his  fair  intent  to  bring  his  assertions  to  a  true 
test.  But  for  one  of  his  boldest  assertions,  that  which 
covers  one  of  the  vital  and  most  disputable  points  in 
the  whole  discussion  of  the  atonement,  he  alleges  no 
Scripture  authority.  Thus  he  says:  "It  tvas  in  early 
times  expressly  declared  that  sacrifices  and  offerings  were 
not  desirable,  or  of  any  worth,  in  themselves  considered, 
and  that  God  did  not  institute  and  require  them  for 
their  own  sake,  as  making  any  real  atonement  for  sin ; 
but  that  this  should  be  made  by  an  incarnate  Redeemer, 
to  whom  they  pointed  as  types  and  shadows  of  him." 
(p.  325.)  The  good  doctor  drew  wholly  on  his  imagina- 
tion here,  as  regards  the  statement  which  we  have  put 
in  italics.  It  was  in  early  times  expressly  declared  and 
emphatically  reiterated,  that  sacrifices  had  no  value  ex- 
cept as  they  indicated  penitence  and  piety  of  heart. 
Obedience  was  better.  The  Jewish  sacrifices  were  sub- 
ordinated to  contrition,  mercy,  faith,  and  amendment  of 
life, — never  in  a  single  instance  to  another  prospective 
sacrifice.     Scripture  has  not  a  word  to  this  effect. 

The  favorite  form  under  which  the  old  doctrine  is 
now   advocated  by  the  advanced   party  among  those 


DR.  POND  ON  THE  GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY.     179 

who  claim  to  represent  the  ancient  Orthodoxy  of  Con- 
gregationalism, is  called  technically  "  the  Governmental 
Theory."  We  will  cite  a  quite  recent  and  very  clear 
statement  of  it.  Dr.  Pond,  in  the  article  above  referred 
to  in  the  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  states,  as  the  first  reason 
for  the  necessity  of  Christ's  agency  in  reconciliation,  that 
which  all  Christians  will  heartily  accept,  namely,  that  it 
"  was  necessary  in  order  that  sinners  might  be  humbled 
and  brought  to  repentance"  He  might  have  quoted 
many  beautiful  Scripture  sentences  in  proof  of  this 
statement,  as  every  doctrine  that  is  really  Scriptural 
may  be  expressed  more  beautifully  and  forcibly  in  that 
than  in  any  other  language.  Thus  :  "  It  behooved  Christ 
to  suffer  and  to  rise  from  the  dead,  that  repentance  and 
remission  of  sins  should  be  preached  in  his  name  among 
all  nations."  (Luke  xxiv.  46,  47.)  "  God,  having  raised 
up  his  Son  Jesus,  sent  him  to  bless  you,  in  turning  away 
every  one  of  you  from  his  iniquities."     (Acts  iii.  26.) 

But,  adds  Dr.  Pond,  "  This  necessity  for  the  atone- 
ment is  not,  after  all,  the  most  urgent  and  fundamental. 
There  is  a  necessity  greater  than  this.  We  remark, 
therefore,  the  atonement  of  Christ  was  necessary  to  sus- 
tain and  honor  the  broken  law  of  God,  to  vindicate  his 
authority,  and  satisfy  his  glorious  justice."  Now  we 
see  how  easy  it  is  for  the  believers  of  this  theory  to  state 
it  intelligibly  and  boldly.  But  how  comes  it  that  they 
have  to  state  it  in  words  and  phrases  of  their  own  ?  If 
the  sacred  writers  had  wished  to  state  it,  nothing  would 
have  been  easier.  But  where  is  there  a  sentence  within 
the  covers  of  the  Bible  that  can  be  quoted  as  explicitly 
advancing  it?  We  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  with  all  the 
frankness  and  positiveness  of  full  conviction,  that  there 
is  not  a  line  or  a  phrase  of  Scripture  that  -affirms  such  a 
doctrine.  Divines  have  to  state  it  in  their  own  terms, 
because  Scripture  terms  fail  them.  Of  course  we  are 
well  aware  that  there  are  passages  in  the  Bible  which 


180     DR.  POND  ON  THE  GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY. 

are  constructively  and  inferentially  turned  to  support 
this  dogma.  But  the  constructions  and  the  inferences 
are  the  very  matters  in  debate.  Having  entered  our  dis- 
tinct protest  here,  with  an  honest  and  sufficient  reason 
for  it,  we  must  follow  the  reasoning  which  proceeds  on 
a  human  formula. 

Dr.  Pond  argues,  it  is  necessary  for  God  as  the  Su- 
preme Ruler  "  to  sustain  law.  He  must  not  suffer  his 
law  to  be  trifled  with  and  trampled  on.  He  must  main- 
tain it  inviolate  in  all  its  strictness  and  strength,  its  au- 
thority and  purity,  or  his  government  of  law  will  be 
subverted  and  overthrown."  The  law,  he  adds,  can  be 
sustained  by  punishing  the  transgressors  as  they  deserve, 
by  inflicting  upon  them  the  threatened  penalty,  and  only 
in  this  way,  unless  some  expedient  can  be  devised  by 
which  the  honor  of  the  broken  law,  and  the  display  of 
God's  righteous  regard  for  it,  and  all  the  ends  of  govern- 
ment, can  be  secured  as  fully,  as  perfectly,  as  they  would 
be  by  inflicting  the  penalty.  Without  some  such  expe- 
dient, to  pardon  and  save  sinners  would  be  a  moral  im- 
possibility, intolerable  under  the  government  of  God, 
inconsistent  with  its  stability,  its  perfection,  and  even 
with  its  continued  existence.  The  Professor  does  not 
stop  to  weigh  the  balance  between  the  two  conditions 
under  which  the  law  may  be  duly  honored,  nor  to  decide 
by  which  of  the  two  the  ends  of  law,  and  the  very  idea  of 
Law,  may  be  vindicated.  One  of  these  is,  the  repentance 
in  dust  and  ashes,  in  deepest  contrition,  of  those  who, 
having  broken  the  law,  have  already  suffered  from  it  and 
by  it,  and  who  now  honor  it  by  suing  with  imploring  hearts 
for  forgiveness ;  taken  in  connection  with  the  tribute  also 
paid  to  the  law  by  the  sufferings  of  those  who  break 
it  and  do  not  repent.  The  other  condition  is,  the  visit- 
ing the  penalty  of  a  broken  law  on  one  who  has  not 
broken  it,  but  has  honored  it  in  all  its  provisions.  Which 
of  these  two  conditions  wins  the  nobler  tribute,  the  more 


CHRIST   A   SUBSTITUTE   FOR   THE    SINNER.  181 

adequate  satisfaction  to  an  outraged  law  ?  Let  the  par- 
ent ask  the  question  as  it  applies  to  family  discipline. 
Are  its  ends  better  answered  to  him  by  the  kneeling 
contrition  and  the  importunate  appeals  for  forgiveness 
of  an  erring  child,  or  by  requiring,  or  even  allowing, 
an  unoffending  brother  or  sister  to  submit  to  a  punish- 
ment ?  Would  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  win  a 
new  attraction  for  our  hearts,  an  enhanced  power  over 
our  consciences,  if  the  father  had  been  represented  as 
scourging  the  elder  son  before  he  embraced  the  younger? 
Dr.  Pond  proceeds  to  argue,  that  the  agency  of  Christ 
offered  an  expedient  alternative  to  the  suffering  of  sinners, 
for  sustaining  law,  —  not,  however,  through  his  perfect 
holiness,  nor  through  his  perfect  obedience  to  the  divine 
law,  the  merit  of  which  obedience  is  imputed  to  us, 
as  the  old  doctrine  affirmed,  —  but  through  his  sufferings 
and  death,  —  "in  the  shedding  of  his  blood."  In  pro- 
nouncing upon  the  mode  of  the  efficacy  of  Christ's 
death,  "the  maimer  in  which  it  availed  to  make  an 
atonement  for  sin,"  he  rejects  that  element  of  the  Cate- 
chism doctrine  which  teaches  "  that  Christ  by  his  suffer- 
ing for  us  literally  paid  our  debt  to  divine  justice"  or 
that  "  he  met  the  strict  and  proper  penalty  of  the  law"  as 
the  fulfilment  of  these  conditions  would  have  required 
that  Christ  should  have  been  the  subject  of  the  most 
hateful  and  painful  passions,  stings  and  reproaches  of 
conscience,  dissatisfaction  with  God,  and  the  pains  and 
agonies  of  the  bottomless  pit  in  eternal  death.  These 
Christ  did  not  suffer.  But  he  answered  "  the  ends  of 
justice."  u  His  death  was  vicarious.  He  died  as  a  sub- 
stitute." "  He  endured,  not  the  proper  penalty  of  the 
law  for  us,  but  an  adequate  substitute  for  that  penalty." 
"  He  offered  a  fair  and  full  equivalent  for  the  everlasting 
sufferings  of  all  who  shall  be  finally  saved."  In  this 
view,  Dr.  Pond  finds  the  reason  why  "  Christ  must  have 
been  just  such  a  personage,  God  and  man,  divine  and 
16 


182       THE  CROSS  A  SUBSTITUTE  FOR  HELL. 

human,  as  he  is  represented  in  the  Scriptures.  Had  he 
been  a  divine  person  only,  he  could  not  have  made  an 
atonement,  because  the  divine  nature  cannot  suffer  and 
die.  And  had  he  been  a  human  person  only,  he  could 
not  have  made  an  atonement,  because  he  would  have 
been  unable,  without  the  divine  nature,  to  endure  the 
requisite  amount  of  suffering,  and  he  would  have  lacked 
that  personal  dignity  and  glory  which  impart  such  a 
value  and  efficacy  to  his  death." 

Now,  if  without  the  least  feeling  of  disrespect  to  the 
writer  of  the  last-quoted  sentences,  but  with  the  simple 
purpose  of  expressing  how  tortuous  is  the  idea  which 
they  present  to  our  own  minds,  we  may  venture  to 
paraphrase  them,  we  must  say  that  they  seem  to  us 
to  intimate  that  Christ's  human  nature  needed  the  divine 
element,  because  the  human  nature  could  not  suffer 
enough ;  and  that  the  divine  nature  needed  the  human 
element,  because  the  divine  nature  could  not  suffer  at 
all.  Is  Christian  doctrine  answerable  for  such  devices, 
or  do  they  come  of  the  brains  of  men? 

Similar  to  these  views  of  the  Bangor  Professor  are 
the  following,  which  we  find  in  a  recent  devotional 
work,  otherwise  enriched  with  some  of  the  choicest  and 
most  impressive  lessons  of  Christian  piety,  conveyed 
in  the  most  chaste  and  fervent  language.  We  refer 
to  "  The  Communion  Sabbath,"  by  Rev.  Dr.  N.  Adams. 
The  author  says :  "  God  alone  was  able  to  expiate  the 
sin  of  his  creatures,  by  taking  man's  nature  into  union 
with  the  Divine,  in  the  person  of  the  Word,  and  making 
satisfaction  to  justice  by  that  which  He  saw  to  be  equiv- 
alent in  effect  to  the  endless  punishment  of  the  race." 
(p.  34.)  The  author  speaks  of  Christ  as  "  expiating  our 
guilt."  (p.  37.)  He  also  says:  "The  death  of  Christ 
was  not  a  substitute  for  our  crucifixion,  but  for  our  end- 
less misery."     (p.  63.) 

Now  if  the  denial,  unreserved   and  emphatic,  of  this 


A   HUMILIATING   DOCTRINE.  183 

view  —  call  it  "  the  governmental  theory,"  or  by  any 
other  title  —  of  what  it  was  necessary,  in  reference  to 
God,  and  to  God's  laic,  that  Christ  should  do,  and  of  what 
Christ  did,  to  open  the  way  for  our  reconciliation  with 
our  Heavenly  Father,  —  if  this  denial  be  indeed  a  denial 
of  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  then  Uni- 
tarians must  needs  submit  to  the  charge,  and  meet  it  as 
they  can.  But  not  for  one  moment  will  Unitarians  al- 
low that  this  is  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 
They  find  no  such  doctrine  in  the  Scriptures,  but  one 
quite  unlike  it.  It  is  usual  for  Orthodox  writers  against 
us  to  assert  that  boastful  reason  and  obduracy  object 
to  this  doctrine,  because  of  its  humiliating  character,  be- 
cause of  its  affront  to  human  pride !  But  how  differ- 
ently do  men  judge  of  the  same  things  !  For  ourselves, 
we  must  say  that  we  know  of  no  mounting  fancy  or 
conception  among  all  the  fabulous  incarnations  of  Hin- 
doo or  Indian  mythology,  or  among  the  apotheoses  of 
Pagan  idolatry,  which  offers  such  an  incense  to  human 
pride  as  do  some  of  the  shapings  of  this  popular  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement.  The  charge  against  us  has  always 
seemed  to  us  to  be  one  of  the  most  perverse  distortions 
of  truth  which  polemical  inventiveness  could  devise. 
What  is  there  humbling  to  human  pride  in  the  doctrine 
that  God  for  our  sakes  (for  his  own  sake,  even !)  con- 
descended to  such  a  method  for  our  redemption  ?  Were 
the  subject  of  a  monarch  in  captivity  in  a  foreign  land 
to  send  home  to  have  a  ransom  provided  for  him,  and 
were  the  monarch  himself  to  go  to  redeem  him,  the  last 
effect  which  we  should  look  for  would  be  that  the  re- 
deemed captive  should  feel  humbled  by  the  transaction. 
He  would  boast  it  as  the  highest  of  his  honors.  The 
Orthodox  doctrine  seems  to  us,  certainly  in  comparison 
with  our  own,  to  foster  a  surpassing  conceit  of  human 
pride.  But  the  implication  intended  to  be  conveyed  by 
the   Orthodox  charge  against  us  is,  that  we  really  find 


184  ISSUE   BETWEEN   THE   PARTIES. 

their  doctrine  in  the  New  Testament,  or,  at  least,  have  a 
misgiving  that  it  is  there,  while  we  contumaciously  resist 
it.  Will  they  therefore  give  us  the  benefit  of  our  own 
most  sincere  and  earnest  profession,  that,  with  all  the 
means  which  they  have  for  understanding  the  Scriptures, 
and  with  as  profound  a  sense  of  their  value,  and  as  single 
a  purpose  to  know  and  obey  their  lessons,  we  find  no  such 
doctrine  in  them  as  Orthodoxy  teaches  ? 

We  have  stated  that  the  antagonistic  issue  opened 
between  Orthodoxy  and  Unitarianism,  after  long  and 
full  debate,  has  committed  us  to  the  following  position  : 
That  the  Scriptures  do  not  lay  the  emphatic  stress  of 
Christ's  redeeming  work  upon  his  death,  above  or  apart 
from  his  life,  character,  and  doctrine  ;  and  that  his  death, 
as  an  element  of  his  redeeming  work,  is  made  effective 
for  human  salvation  through  its  influence  on  the  heart 
and  life  of  man,  not  through  its  vicarious  or  substituted 
value  with  God,  nor  through  its  removal  of  an  abstract 
difficulty  in  the  Divine  government  which  hinders  the 
forgiveness  of  the  penitent  without  further  satisfaction. 
All  the  points  now  left  in  debate  between  the  two  par- 
ties are  recognized  in  this  summary  statement.  A  brief 
reference  to  them,  successively,  will  exhibit  in  as  sum- 
mary a  way  our  denials  of  Orthodox  positions,  and 
the  reason  for  such  denials,  and  also  the  substance  and 
grounds  of  our  own  doctrinal  belief. 

A  few  years  ago  Unitarianism  was  compelled  to  ob- 
ject that  Orthodoxy  laid  the  whole  emphasis  of  Christ's 
redeeming  work  upon  his  death,  upon  his  cross,  his 
humiliation,  his  ignominy  and  sufferings.  Of  late  the 
co-ordinate  value  of  the  life  and  doctrine  of  Christ  has 
been  acknowledged  by  some  able  Orthodox  writers, 
though  essential  Calvinism  and  the  formula  of  the 
Westminster  Catechism  made  no  account  whatever  of 
these  elements  of  his  redeeming  work.  His  merits  and 
obedience  were  recognized  as  prevailing  with   God,  — 


THE   DEATH    OF   CHRIST.  185 

not  with  man.  Still  we  think  that  even  the  fullest  rec- 
ognition which  we  have  ever  met  on  any  page  of  modern 
Orthodoxy  does  not  do  justice  to  the  proportions  of 
Scriptural  truth  on  this  point.  No  conviction  lives  more 
sincerely  in  the  hearts  of  Unitarians  than  this,  that  the 
first  erroneous  bias  of  Orthodoxy  arises  precisely  here. 
God  forbid  that  we  should  write  a  word  to  depreciate 
the  importance,  the  stress,  or  the  value,  in  the  whole 
work  of  redemption,  of  the  cross,  the  death  of  Christ. 
But  we  do  not  fear  this  risk  when  our  sole  purpose  is, 
not  to  compare  the  death  of  Christ  with  any  other  death, 
but  to  insist  upon  its  relative  aspect  and  proportions  in 
connection  with  all  else  in  him  and  by  him.  It  is  Christ's 
life,  and  Christ's  character,  and  Christ's  doctrine,  which 
we  would  not  have  overshadowed  by  his  cross. 

Christ  came  into  the  world,  as  he  said,  to  die  for  the 
world,  and,  in  dying,  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth  the  knowl- 
edge and  obedience  of  which  would  insure  eternal  life  to 
men.  Thus  his  life,  his  character,  and  his  doctrine  are 
made  the  elements  of  his  work.  When  these  were  dis- 
played to  men,  they  would  bring  him  to  his  cross,  while 
by  that  cross  he  would  draw  all  men  unto  him.  We  have, 
then,  to  look  to  his  life,  character,  and  doctrine  to  find  the 
purpose  and  the  lesson  of  his  death.  But,  in  our  view, 
Orthodoxy  does  violence  to  truth  by  impairing  the  pro- 
portion of  its  ingredients  on  these  vast  and  solemn 
themes.  Orthodoxy  does  not  follow  the  harmony  of 
Scripture  in  laying  equal  stress  upon  all  that  Christ 
was  and  taught  and  did.  We  do  not  charge  Ortho- 
doxy with  laying  too  much  stress  upon  the  death  of 
Christ,  but  with  laying  too  much  stress  upon  the  death 
of  Christ.  The  error  of  Orthodoxy  here  seems  to  us 
to  lie  in  the  same  direction  as  does  that  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  in  the  painful  multiplication  and  obtrusion  of 
its  scenical  and  symbolical  pictures  of  the  crucifixion ;  in 
its  analytic  representations  of  the  incidents  and  instru- 
16* 


186       THE  CROSS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

ments  of  the  Passion,  as  shown  in  the  "  Stations  of  the 
Cross,"  and  in  its  elaborate  ingenuities  for  keeping  all 
the  agonies  of  Calvary  ever  before  the  eye  of  the  wor- 
shipper. The  Scriptures  do  not  thus  isolate  and  em- 
phasize the  Saviour's  sufferings.  A  misleading  effect 
has  been  produced  by  the  habit  of  Orthodox  disputants, 
when  arguing  upon  the  cross  of  Christ,  of  selecting  and 
bringing  together  from  each  separate  document  of  the 
New  Testament  all  the  passages  which  refer  to  the 
death  of  the  Saviour.  It  is  forgotten  that  those  docu- 
ments were  addressed  by  different  writers  to  different 
communities,  and  the  impression  is  designed  or  left  that 
all  the  passages  entered  into  each  announcement  or  ap- 
peal of  the  Gospel.  Indeed,  if  one  could  be  content  to 
go  through  the  New  Testament  for  the  purpose  of  de- 
ciding by  count  or  by  the  force  of  emphasis  what  one 
element  of  the  Saviour's  whole  agency  or  history  is 
chiefly  insisted  upon  by  the  Apostles,  he  would  proba- 
bly find  that  his  resurrection  takes  precedence  of  all 
others.  Paul  does  not  say,  If  Christ  has  not  died, 
your  faith  is  vain ;  but,  "  If  Christ  be  not  risen  from 
the  dead,  then  is  our  preaching  vain  :  ye  are  yet  in  your 
sins."  (1  Cor.  xv.  14,  17.)  It  was  his  "  hope  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead,"  for  which  Paul  was  called  in 
question  before  the  Pharisees.  (Acts  xxiii.  6.)  When 
the  Apostle  enjoyed  the  coveted  opportunity  of  address- 
ing Felix  and  Drusilla  concerning  "  the  faith  in  Christ," 
the  record  tells  us  that  "he  reasoned  of  righteousness, 
temperance,  and  judgment  to  come,"  with  no  reference 
to  an  expiatory  offering  made  by  Christ.  And  when 
he  stood  before  King  Agrippa  to  proclaim  the  hope  and 
promise  of  the  Gospel,  there  was  the  same  silence  about 
the  expiation,  and  the  same  stress  laid  upon  the  doctrine 
of  the  resurrection.  "  Why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing 
incredible  with  you  that  God  should  raise  the  dead  ?  " 
(Acts  xxvi.  8.)    "Jesus  and  the  resurrection"  were  the 


CONSISTENCY   OF   CHRIST?S   DEATH.  187 

strange  things  that    Paul   preached   at    Athens.    (Acts 
xvii.  18,  20,  31,  32.) 

Why,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  if  the  death  of  Christ  is 
not  made  in  Scripture  to  be  the  paramount  and.  only  em- 
phatic incident  in  his  manifestation  to  men,  —  why  did 
he  so  die  ?  Why  was  not  his  ministry  terminated  peace- 
fully, gently,  and  by  some  natural  process  ?  We  answer, 
at  this  stage  of  our  argument,  —  leaving  the  point  for 
further  remark  in  another  connection,  —  that  a  suffering 
end  was  the  consistent  termination  of  such  a  life  and 
of  such  a  work.  The  sacrificial  character  of  his  death  — 
and  we  hold  his  death  to  have  been  sacrificial  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word  —  had  been  foreshadowed  by 
every  incident  and  element  of  his  manifestation.  In  the 
body  of  flesh,  through  which  he  suffered  on  the  cross,  he 
had  been  humbled,  and  tempted,  and  scourged,  and  buf- 
feted. The  hands  and  feet  which  he  showed  to  his  disci- 
ples, pierced  by  the  nails  on  Mount  Calvary,  had  shared 
the  toils  and  weariness  of  his  ministry  as  the  servant 
of  all.  How  far  the  knowledge  of  "  the  decease  which 
he  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem,"  and  of  the  method 
of  it,  may  have  pervaded  and  deepened  the  spirit  of  all 
his  words  and  deeds,  and  given  to  what  humanly  we 
call  his  character  its  solitary  perfectness  and  its  fulness 
of  heavenward  consecration,  it  would  be  presumptuous 
in  a  disciple  to  judge.  It  is  written  of  him,  howev- 
er, that  he  was  himself  "  made  perfect  through  suffer- 
ing " ;  that  the  crowning  grace  of  his  soul  was  his 
triumph  over  mortal  weakness  ;  and  that  by  his  own 
endurance  of  trial  he  became  the  consoler  and  the  sup- 
porter of  those  among  whom  his  cross  is  divided.  How 
much  of  his  fitness  for  his  mediatorial  work  was  secured 
by  his  own  subjection  in  the  flesh,  we  know  not.  But 
we  have  the  knowledge  of  his  life  and  ministry,  which 
warrants  us  in  saying  that  the  only  consistent  termina- 
tion of  his  life  and  work  was  that  which  closed  it  on 


188  RECONCILING  LIFE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  cross.  His  was  a  public  life  of  outward  severities, 
humiliations,  and  mortifications.  To  have  ended  it  in 
retirement,  on  a  peaceful  couch  in  a  private  dwelling, 
under  a  gentle  ministration  such  as  his  houseless  lot  had 
never  shared,  would  not  have  been  in  harmony  with  its 
course  and  consecration.  Not  with  reference  to  any 
legal  exactions  of  the  Almighty  Father,  but  as  addressed 
to  the  hearts  of  men,  do  we  enter  into  the  touching  sig- 
nificance of  such  words  as  these,  from  the  Saviour's  own 
lips  :  "  The  Son  of  Man  must  suffer  many  things,  and 
be  rejected  " ;  "  He  must  be  delivered  into  the  hands  of 
sinful  men  " ;  "  He  must  needs  have  suffered  and  risen 
again  from  the  dead "  ;  and,  on  the  walk  to  Emmaus, 
"  Ought  not  Christ  to  have  suffered  these  things,  and  to 
enter  into  his  glory  ?  " 

In  the  mean  while  the  reconciling  offices  of  Christ,  as 
they  are  concentrated  under  the  shadows  of  his  cross, 
are  distributed  over  the  toils  and  the  benedictive  ser- 
vices of  his  life,  are  manifested  in  the  graces  of  his 
character,  and  are  set  forth  in  his  counsels,  his  appeals, 
his  promises,  and  his  personal  ministry  in  the  heart  of  a 
believer.  His  touch  could  heal ;  his  word  could  forgive 
and  save  ;  his  look  could  rebuke  and  win  ;  his  common 
converse  could  make  hearts  to  burn  within  them;  and 
his  dying  groan  did  but  finish  the  work  he  had  long  been 
doing.  It  may  be  that  the  greater  multitude  of  his  dis- 
ciples in  every  age  have  been  won  to  him  by  the  "  power 
of  his  sufferings."  Indeed,  this  result  would  follow,  or 
would  seem  to  follow,  from  the  fact  that  his  preachers 
have  selected  for  stress  and  reiteration  that  single  point 
of  appeal.  But  confident  we  are,  that,  without  diminu- 
tion from  the  attractions  of  the  cross,  it  may  be  affirmed 
that  his  life  and  character  and  doctrine,  his  grace  and 
truth,  his  humility  and  patience  and  sinlessness,  have 
secured  him  unnumbered  believers  in  all  time.  The 
death  of  Christ  takes  we  know  not  how  much  of  its 


EFFICACY   OF   CHRIST'S   DEATH.  189 

meaning  from  his  life.  The  blessed  power  of  sympathy 
in  suffering  in  a  world  of  sufferers,  where  disciples  "must 
drink  of  the  cup  and  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  "  of 
their  Master,  is  an  influence  which  we  dare  not  fathom 
or  bound.  We  feel,  however,  that  some  of  the  most 
sacred  and  potent  sway  of  Christ  over  the  weary,  the 
crushed,  the  woful  and  agonized,  depends  upon  the 
fact,  that  the  holiest  and  the  tenderest  sharer  of  our  in- 
firmities was  "  a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with 
grief."  There  is  an  intimation  which  we  will  not  un- 
generously force,  but  which  we  cannot  but  follow  up 
in  our  thoughts  as  dropped  by  St.  Paul,  when,  in  a  mys- 
terious way,  he  says  that  he  rejoiced  in  his  sufferings, 
and  filled  up  in  his  flesh  that  which  was  "  lacking  in  the 
afflictions  of  Christ  for  his  body's  sake,  which  is  the 
Church."  It  is  as  if  the  Apostle  ventured  to  suggest 
that  he  would  contribute  even  his  own  pains  and  agonies 
to  fill  out  the  sacred  purpose  of  his  Master's  sufferings. 

We  come  now  to  the  vital  point  of  the  doctrinal  dif- 
ference between  Unitarianism  and  Orthodoxy  as  regards 
the  Atonement.  Since  we  are  now  found  to  accord  in 
the  meaning  of  that  word  as  expressing  reconciliation,  we 
accept  the  condition  that  the  Scripture  doctrine  which  we 
wish  to  define  is  —  the  agency  of  Christ  in  opening  and 
preparing  the  way  for  a  reconciliation  between  God  and 
men.  Keeping  in  view  what  has  just  been  said  respect- 
ing the  whole  agency  of  Christ  in  his  life,  his  character, 
and  his  doctrine,  we  will  now  concentrate  the  issue 
upon  his  death.  How  is  the  death  of  Christ  made 
efficacious  for  human  salvation  ?  What  is  the  revealed 
method  of  its  working  to  that  result  ?  The  two  parties 
to  be  reconciled  are  man,  the  sinning  child,  and  God, 
the  kind  and  righteous  and  offended  Father  ;  man, 
wTho  is  a  debtor  to  the  law,  and  God,  whose  just 
due  and  service  have  been  denied  him.  Man  is  in 
the  wrong,  not   God;  man  needs  to  be  changed,  not 


190  THE  POINT   OF   CONTROVERSY. 

God  ;  for  he  is  ever  waiting  and  willing  to  be  gracious. 
There  is  a  relation  of  hostility  between  the  Father  and 
the  child,  and  Christ  comes  to  mediate  between  them. 
His  death,  whether  or  not  it  has  the  chief  efficacy, 
has  at  least  the  crowning  agency  in  his  mediatorial 
work  of  securing  reconciliation.  But  how?  Through 
what  instrumentality,  method,  or  process  ?  We  recog- 
nize two,  and  only  two,  directions  in  which  we  can  look 
for  an  answer  to  this  question.  Orthodoxy  looks  in  one 
of  these  directions,  and  brings  back  a  report  which  fixes 
its  doctrine  on  this  subject.  Unitarianism  looks  in  an- 
other direction,  and  accepts  as  a  consequence  another 
doctrine.  We  do  not  wish  to  avail  ourselves  of  any 
dubiousness  of  language,  of  any  confusion  of  terms,  of 
any  specious  assumptions  of  a  deceptive  accord  in  opin- 
ions which  are  in  fact  radically  different.  We  aim  for 
candor,  and  we  would  rather  overstate  than  understate 
our  difference  with  Orthodoxy  on  this  point.  Clear- 
headed, out-spoken,  frankly  avowed  conviction  is  what 
we  all  need  here,  —  what  the  interests  of  truth,  what  the 
hopes  of  amity  and  tolerance,  even  amid  differences,  are 
rested  upon.  Orthodoxy  regards  the  death  of  Christ  as 
looking  God-ward  for  its  efficacy.  Unitarianism  re- 
gards the  death  of  Christ  as  looking  Man-ward  for  its 
efficacy.  If  we  have  not  in  this  distinction  fairly  and 
fully  stated  the  whole  issue  between  us,  we  beg  that 
our  error  may  be  ascribed  to  our  inability  to  compre- 
hend and  define  the  issue,  not  to  any  lack  of  right 
intent  or  desire  to  do  so.  We  believe  that  we  have 
expressed  it  fairly.  Indeed,  it  is  because  we  regard  the 
Calvinistic  theory  in  all  its  shapes  and  modifications  as 
involving  an  influence  in  Christ's  death  which  looks 
toward  God  for  its  efficacy,  that  we  reject  it  in  heart 
and  faith,  unreservedly  and  earnestly,  as  a  heathenish 
and  an  unchristian  doctrine. 

The  essential  token  of  the   Calvinistic  or  Orthodox 


THE  POINT   OF   CONTROVERSY.  191 

scheme  on  this  doctrine,  whether  characterized  as  a 
covenant  between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  or  centring 
upon  the  word  vicarious,  or  satisfaction,  or  planting  it- 
self upon  a  "  governmental  theory,"  is  that  the  efficacy 
of  Christ's  death  works  by  its  operation  upon  God,  or 
some  attribute  of  God,  or  upon  some  abstract  difficulty 
in  which  he  is  involved  by  the  laws  of  government  he 
has  himself  established.  Orthodoxy  interposes  a  law 
between  God  and  man  which  mercy  cannot  relax,  but 
which  only  a  victim  can  satisfy.  God  can  freely  for- 
give, but  his  law  cannot  freely  remit  a  penitent  offender. 
The  essential  token  of  the  Unitarian  scheme  is  that  the 
whole  operation  of  Christ's  mediatorial  death  is  upon  the 
heart  and  life  and  spirit  of  man.  We  cannot  confound 
or  merge  this  fundamental  distinction ;  it  reaches  deep  ; 
it  rises  high.  Though  Unitarianism  may  not  undertake 
to  fathom,  or  comprehend,  or  give  expression  to  all  the 
mysterious  influence  and  efficacy  and  mode  of  operation 
upon  man  and  man's  soul  and  destiny,  though  Unita- 
rianism is  free  to  acknowledge  an  unexplained  and  in- 
explicable agency  in  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ,  it 
nevertheless  looks  for  it  all  in  the  direction  of  humanity, 
not  in  the  direction  of  the  Deity.  We  are  ready  for  our- 
selves to  go  all  the  lengths  of  mysticism  and  mystifica- 
tion on  this  point,  and  to  yield  to  the  feeling  of  being  on 
unsounded  waters  beneath  unfathomed  depths  of  ether. 
We  are  cheerfully  willing  to  admit  that  God  has  com- 
prehended influences  in  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ 
which  are  designed  to  be  efficaciously  felt  and  merci- 
fully availed  of  by  us  without  yielding  to  the  solution  of 
our  understanding.  We  can  even  accept  some  state- 
ments which  we  find  in  Orthodox  pages  about  "  a  satis- 
faction made  to  law,"  by  simply  construing  them  as 
applying  the  sanction  and  penalties  of  the  law  to  us 
through  the  sufferings  of  Christ  for  sin.  We  can  accord 
well  with  the  following  remark  of  the  great  Bishop  But- 


192  THE    CONDITION   OF   FOKGIVENESS. 

ler :  "  How  and  in  what  particular  way  Christ's  death 
had  this  efficacy  [obtaining  pardon],  there  are  not  want- 
ing persons  who  have  endeavored  to  explain ;  but  I  do 
not  find  that  the  Scripture  has  explained  it.  And  if  the 
Scripture  has,  as  surely  it  has,  left  this  matter  of  the 
satisfaction  of  Christ  mysterious,  left  somewhat  in  it 
unrevealed,  all  conjectures  about  it  must  be,  if  not  evi- 
dently absurd,  yet  at  least  uncertain."  *  "We  too  would 
be  willing  to  leave  the  matter  unexplained.  But  our 
protest  against  the  Orthodox  scheme  is,  that,  instead  of 
ascribing  the  intelligible  or  the  mysterious  efficacy  of 
Christ's  death  to  its  uses  for  offending,  sinning,  and  re- 
penting man,  it  makes  a  revolting  dogma,  or  a  needless 
device,  and  follows  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross  into  the 
skies,  as  setting  matters  right  between  God  and  his  own 
attributes  of  Justice  and  Mercy. 

We  are  sensitive  to  any  blurring  of  the  dividing  line 
between  the  God-ward  or  the  Man-ward  working  of  the 
efficacy  of  Christ's  whole  mediatorial  office.  We  ask 
no  compromise  of  opinion,  we  will  make  none  what- 
ever. We  are  impatient  of  any  confusion  of  terms,  any 
intermingling  of  distinctions,  on  this  point.  Reconcilia- 
tion involves  two  conditions,  —  repentance  in  the  of- 
fender, forgiveness  on  the  part  of  the  wronged.  Or,  if 
we  add  to  the  condition  on  the  one  side,  we  must  qualify 
the  grace  on  the  other.  If  we  require  that  the  offender 
must  not  only  repent,  but  make  reparation,  then  we 
must  recognize  in  the  other  party,  not  simple  forgive- 
ness, but  the  exacting  of  a  satisfaction.  As  God  is  re- 
vealed as  forgiving  iniquity,  he  consents  to  forego  satis- 
faction; and  as  man  is  unable  to  make  reparation,  he 
is  required  to  offer  penitence.  We  cannot  attribute 
forgiveness  where  repentance  and  reparation  are  both 
demanded,  for  then  the  remission  is  not  of  grace,  but  by 

*  Analogy,  Part  II.  Chap.  V. 


CHRIST  A  SACRIFICE  FOR   MAN.  193 

payment.  We  can  neither  fetter  God's  administration 
with  laws  which  restrict  his  prerogative  of  mercy,  nor 
take  the  benignity  out  of  his  forgiveness  by  attaching  a 
purchase  to  its  exercise. 

Unitarianism,  in  opposition  to  Orthodoxy,  maintains 
that  the  death  of  Christ,  so  far  as  its  efficacy  is  dis- 
tinctly defined,  is  instrumental  to  our  salvation  through 
its  influence  on  the  heart  and  life  of  man,  not  through 
its  vicarious  value  with  God ;  and  also  that  revelation 
does  not  acquaint  us  with  any  obstacle  in  the  method 
of  administration  which  God  has  established  as  his  gov- 
ernment, which  prevents  his  exercising  mercy  to  the 
penitent  except  through  the  substitution  of  a  victim  to 
law. 

And  here,  for  the  sake  of  averting  an  erroneous  and 
an  injurious  judgment  often  visited  by  Orthodoxy  upon 
our  views,  let  a  simple  statement  be  strongly  made. 
Orthodoxy,  not  through  warrant  of  anything  which 
Unitarianism  proclaims,  but  by  one  of  the  unkind  arts 
of  controversy,  attempts  to  confine  our  construction  of 
the  atoning  death  of  Christ  to  the  power  and  service  of 
an  example.  We  protest  against  the  charge  :  we  repel 
it.  What  some  Unitarians  may  have  recognized  as  a 
subsidiary  and  incidental  lesson  from  the  cross  of  Christ, 
ought  not  to  be  thus  represented  as  exhausting  our  view 
of  it.  It  is  not  our  doctrine  that  the  death  of  Christ 
becomes  efficacious  to  us  as  an  example,  or  even  that 
it  is  especially  needed  or  available  in  that  direction. 
Christ  is  to  us  a  victim,  a  sacrifice:  his  death  was  a 
sacrificial  death.  Its  method  and  purpose  and  influence 
fix  a  new,  a  specific,  a  peculiar,  an  eminent  meaning  to 
the  word  sacrifice,  when  used  of  him.  Indeed,  the  high- 
est and  most  sacred  signification  of  the  word  ought  for 
ever  to  be  associated  with  his  sacrifice.  But,  in  con- 
formity with  that  deciding  distinction  already  made 
as  settled  by  the  terms  of  a  God- ward  or  a  Man-ward 
17 


194  CHRIST  RECONCILES   MAN,  NOT   GOD. 

intent  in  the  cross,  we  regard  Jesus  as  a  sacrifice  for 
man,  but  not  as  a  sacrifice  to  God.  The  difference  is 
an  infinite  one,  as  indicated  by  those  two  prepositions 
attached  respectively  to  the  creature  and  the  Creator. 
We  regard  Christ  as  a  victim  offered  by  human  sin  for 
human  redemption ;  as  one  who  could  not  have  been 
our  Redeemer  but  by  being  "  faithful  unto  death,"  and 
as  a  willing  sacrifice  for  our  redemption.  He  was  led 
as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter,  and  his  murderers,  as  the 
Prophet  had  foretold  that  they  would,  had  wrongly 
"  esteemed  him  stricken,  smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted." 
(Isaiah  liii.  4.)  But  instead  of  being  "stricken  of  God," 
he  was  "wounded  for  our  iniquities."  "He  tasted  death 
for  every  man  "  ;  not  eternal  death,  but  death.  He  was 
nailed  to  the  cross  to  secure  our  salvation,  but  not  to 
make  reparation  for  our  sins  to  God. 

If  reconciliation  between  man  and  God  be  the  object 
of  the  death,  as  of  the  life,  the  character,  and  the  doctrine 
of  Christ,  the  process  for  securing  that  reconciliation  re- 
quires that  the  party  who  has  been  wronged  shall  an- 
nounce first  on  what  terms  he  will  grant  it,  and  that  the 
offending  party  shall  then  yield  to  those  terms.  Men 
are  the  party  in  the  wrong ;  they  are  to  be  brought  to  a 
sense  of  their  sin,  to  be  made  acquainted  with  the  terms 
which  God  proposes  for  forgiveness,  and  induced  to 
comply  with  them.  So  complete  has  been  the  perver- 
sion of  the  simple  Scripture  terms  of  reconciliation 
which  Orthodox  views  have  for  ages  made  current  in 
the  world,  that  there  has  been  an  actual  inversion  of 
the  relations  of  parties.  How  frequently  do  Orthodox 
writers,  as  if  wholly  unconscious  of  the  strange  liberty 
which  they  take  in  wresting  Scripture,  allow  themselves 
to  speak  of  Christ  as  "  reconciling  God  to  us,"  instead 
of  following  Scripture,  which  always  speaks  of  Christ 
as  "reconciling  us  to  God"!  Indeed,  the  second  of  the 
Thirty-Nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England,  as  also 


A   VICTIM   TO   LAW.  195 

of  the  Episcopal  Church  in  this  country,  speaks  of 
Christ's  manifestation  as  designed  "to  reconcile  his 
Father  to  us  " !     Such  are  the  risks  of  false  doctrine. 

What,  then,  are  the  terms  of  reconciliation  which  God 
announces  through  Christ  to  men  ?  The  terms  on  which 
God  offers  forgiveness  are  such  a  faith  in  Christ  as  will 
lead  us  to  realize  his  doctrine  of  our  sinfulness,  our  hos- 
tility and  alienation  from  God,  and  our  consequent  state 
of  danger  and  condemnation ;  and  further,  such  a  faith 
in  Christ  as  will  persuade  us  of  his  authority  to  prom- 
ise forgiveness  on  our  repentance  and  future  obedience, 
while  at  the  same  time  we  avail  ourselves  of  those  con- 
ditions and  yield  to  the  constraining  influences  of  God's 
Holy  Spirit.  These  are  the  terms  which  Unitarianism 
recognizes  for  reconciliation  to  God  through  Jesus  Christ. 
If  God  will  give  us  grace  to  fulfil  these  conditions,  we 
will  compound  with  ourselves  for  all  anxiety  about  every 
"  Governmental  Theory "  which  the  fancies  of  theolo- 
gians can  conjure  up. 

Orthodoxy  recognizes  these  same  terms  of  reconcilia- 
tion, but  adds  to  them  another,  looking,  not  man-ward 
but  God-ward,  for  its  necessity  and  its  efficacy.  Ortho- 
doxy argues  that  violated  law  requires  not  only  such  a 
recognition  of  its  authority  as  is  offered  to  the  lawgiver 
by  a  penitent  offender,  but  also  a  victim,  an  expiation, 
to  sustain  and  vindicate  its  honor.  As  God  is  the  repre- 
sentative of  that  law,  he  requires  that  a  substitute  suffer 
for  the  penitent  offender  in  order  thus  to  sustain  the 
authority  of  law.  Christ  was  that  suffering  substitute 
to  outraged  law  for  us,  and  one  of  the  effects  of  true  and 
saving  faith  in  him  is  to  make  us  partakers  in  the  merits 
of  his  God-ward  sacrifice. 

As  Scripture  affords  not  a  single  sentence  which,  even 
by  the  aid  of  a  gloss  or  a  false  construction,  can  be  used 
as  a  formula  for  stating  all  the  elements  comprehended 
in  this  Orthodox  dogma,  we  will  present  some  of  the 


196  VIEWS    OF   BISHOP   BUTLER. 

simplest  announcements  of  it  which  we  have  found  in 
the  writings  of  theologians.  Bishop  Butler,  all  whose 
words  seem  to  have  been  weighed  in  the  scales  of  a 
calm  and  cautious  wisdom,  says:  "  Some  have  endeav- 
ored to  explain  the  efficacy  of  what  Christ  has  done 
and  suffered  for  us,  beyond  what  the  Scripture  has  au- 
thorized ;  others,  probably  because  they  could  not  ex- 
plain it,  have  been  for  taking  it  away,  and  confining  his 
office  as  Redeemer  of  the  world  to  his  instruction,  ex- 
ample, and  government  of  the  Church.  "Whereas  the 
doctrine  of  the  Gospel  appears  to  be,  not  only  that  he 
taught  the  efficacy  of  repentance,  but  rendered  it  of  the 
efficacy  which  it  is,  by  what  he  did  and  suffered  for  us ; 
that  he  obtained  for  us  the  benefit  of  having  our  repent- 
ance accepted  unto  eternal  life ;  not  only  that  he  revealed 
to  sinners  that  they  were  in  a  capacity  of  salvation,  and 
how  they  might  obtain  it,  but  moreover  that  he  put 
them  into  this  capacity  of  salvation  by  what  he  did  and 
suffered  for  them,  —  put  us  into  a  capacity  of  escaping 
future  punishment,  and  obtaining  future  happiness." 
He  had  before  recognized  it  as  among  the  teachings  of 
revelation,  "  that  the  rules  of  the  Divine  government  are 
such  as  not  to  admit  of  pardon  immediately  and  directly 
upon  repentance,  or  by  the  sole  efficacy  of  it."  He 
afterwards  adds,  in  reference  to  the  supposed  Scriptural 
view  of  the  purpose  designed  in  Christ's  sufferings,  "  Its 
tendency  to  vindicate  the  authority  of  God's  laws,  and 
deter  his  creatures  from  sin,  has  never  yet  been  an- 
swered, and  is,  I  think,  plainly  unanswerable ;  though  I 
am  far  from  thinking  it  an  account  of  the  whole  of  the 
case."  "  Let  reason  be  kept  to,  and  if  any  part  of  the 
Scripture  account  of  the  redemption  of  the  world  by 
Christ  can  be  shown  to  be  really  contrary  to  it,  let  the 
Scripture,  in  the  name  of  God,  be  given  up ;  but  let  not 
such  poor  creatures  as  we  go  on  objecting  against  an 


VIEWS   OF  DR.   WOODS.  197 

infinite  scheme,  that  we  do  not  see<the  necessity  or  use- 
fulness of  all  its  parts,  and  call  this  reasoning."  * 

This  moderation  is  the  very  majesty  of  wisdom.  Let 
us  see  what  the  modern  Orthodoxy  of  New  England 
says  on  the  same  point.  Dr.  Woods  tells  us,  that  u  all 
the  influence  of  repentance  results  from  the  death  of 
Christ.  Repentance  is  a  means  on  our  part  of  obtain- 
ing the  good  purchased  by  Christ's  death."  "  Christ's 
death  was  appointed  by  God  as  a  substitute  for  the 
punishment  of  sinners ;  it  answered  the  same  purposes; 
it  made  substantially  the  same  display  of  God's  attri- 
butes and  the  principles  of  his  government,  and  has  the 
same  efficacy,  though  far  superior  in  degree,  to  promote 
the  permanent  welfare  of  his  kingdom."  "  A  brief  defi- 
nition of  the  Atonement,  then,  might  be  given  in  some 
such  manner  as  this  :  It  is  Christ's  obedience  unto  death, 
even  the  death  of  the  cross  in  the  place  of  sinners,  for 
the  purpose  of  vindicating  the  violated  law,  manifesting 
the  righteousness  of  God,  making  expiation  for  sin,  and 
procuring  forgiveness,  sanctification,  and  eternal  life  for 
all  believers."  f  The  strange  confusion  of  ideas  and 
terms  which  necessarily  attaches  to  the  Orthodox  the- 
ology, presents  a  specimen  of  itself  in  the  following 
sentences,  when  compared  together.  In  his  Eighth  Let- 
ter to  Unitarians,  Dr.  Woods  says :  "  God  would  never 
have  saved  sinners,  had  not  Christ  interposed  and  made 
an  atonement."  Yet  in  his  Ninth  Letter  he  says :  "  It 
is  uniformly  the  sentiment  of  the  Orthodox,  that  the 
origin,  the  grand  moving  cause  of  redemption,  was  the 
infinite  love,  benignity,  or  mercy  of  God." 

Very  frequently  .we  find  the  point  of  the  Orthodox 
doctrine  thus  sharply  presented :  "  Repentance  is  the  con- 
dition of  forgiveness  with  God,  but  the  death  of  Christ 


*  Analogy,  Part  TI.  Chap.  V. 

t  Dr.  Woods's  Works,  Vol.  II.  pp.  404,  453,  463. 

17* 


198  THE  GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY. 

is  the  ground  on  which  that  condition  is  effectual." 
"  The  ground  of  salvation  is  the  completed  work,  the 
atoning  merits  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ :  the  condition 
of  their  bestowal  on  an  individual  is  repentance."  Such 
formulas  as  the  following  we  might  quote  from  many 
writers:  —  "The  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  were 
necessary  to  make  the  exercise  of  the  divine  mercy  to 
men  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  divine  justice." 
"  Christ  died  for  the  purpose  of  removing  an  obstacle 
in  the  divine  government,  in  the  way  of  extending  par- 
don to  the  penitent." 

The  Orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  may,  there- 
fore, be  regarded  as  concentrated  now  upon  this  "  gov- 
ernmental theory,"  and  as  standing  or  falling  with  the 
proof  or  the  failure  of  proof  that  this  theory,  owing  noth- 
ing to  the  wit  or  fancy  of  man,  is  positively  and  clearly 
taught  in  the  Scriptures.  We  have  seen  how  positively 
and  clearly  its  believers  can  state  it,  and  this  raises  our 
demand,  that,  putting  aside  their  own  formulas,  they 
should  offer  us  instead  "the  law  and  the  testimony,"  and 
give  us  at  least  one  text  which  includes  all  its  essential 
terms.  It  is  something,  however,  to  have  the  old  shap- 
ings and  concomitants  once  attached  to  the  doctrine,  as 
by  good  Mr.  Flavel,  withdrawn  from  our  current  relig- 
ious literature.  Those  who,  as  professors  in  divinity 
schools,  and  as  men  of  eminent  distinction  as  theolo- 
gians, are  educating  a  new  generation  of  ministers,  will 
very  soon  introduce  more  or  less  important  modifica- 
tions in  the  popular  belief  by  different  constructions  of 
this  governmental  theory.  The  fluctuations  and  tonings 
down  of  opinion  which  have  reached  that  form  of  doc- 
trinal statement  are  not  likely  to  stop  with  it.  If  with 
due  modesty  we  may  intimate  a  conviction  which  the 
tendencies  of  thought,  with  some  recent  striking  exam- 
ples of  the  result  of  those  tendencies,  lead  us  to  hold  in 
strong  assurance,  we  will  say  that  this  legal  view  of 


THE  GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY.  199 

Christ's  death  must  and  will  yield  to  a  profounder  Chris- 
tian philosophy.  Its  best  recommendation,  its  strength, 
consisted  in  the  relief  which  it  afforded  to  Orthodox 
believers  when  they  were  pressed  by  the  objections  to  a 
more  repulsive  theory.  It  still  has  a  strong  sway  over 
the  sentiments ;  it  will  fail  when  tested  by  textual  criti- 
cism and  the  logic  of  truth.  Within  the  month,  we  have 
read  three  very  able  arguments  against  it  by  men  who 
were  educated  to  defend  it,  from  three  such  different 
quarters  as  the  Scotch  Church,  through  J.  McLeod 
Campbell,  the  English  Church,  by  Mr.  Jowett,  and  the 
Baptist  Church  in  this  country,  by  Dr.  Sheldon.  We 
must  devote  our  little  remaining  space  to  a  brief  men- 
tion of  a  few  of  our  many  objections  to  this  last  phase 
of  the  old  Orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  It 
might  seem  needless,  yet,  to  avert  misunderstanding  or 
misrepresentation,  we  will  here  remind  all  readers,  that 
we  are  not  bringing  our  reason  to  bear  against  a  doc- 
trine of  revelation,  which  may  God  forbid  our  ever  doing, 
but  against  what  we  pronounce  to  be  a  human  dogma 
constructively  ascribed  to  revelation.  It  is  against  the 
Orthodox  formula  that  we  reason,  —  the  formula  which 
affirms  that  God,  in  order  that  he  may  exercise  mercy 
towards  the  penitent,  requires  or  accepts  an  expiatory 
offering  made  by  innocence  to  his  own  law. 

A  governmental  theory  implies,  in  this  use  of  the 
phrase,  a  law  which  restrains,  or  at  least  regulates,  the 
perfect  freedom  of  the  working  of  the  Divine  administra- 
tion over  men.  It  was  a  prime  essential  in  revelation 
to  make  known  this  theory  to  us  if  it  be  true.  But 
where  are  we  to  look  for  it  in  the  explicit  teachings  of 
Scripture?  What  sentences,  what  single  sentence,  can 
be  quoted  as  offering  a  direct,  or  even  an  indirect,  inti- 
mation of  it?  Not  one!  This  fettering  himself  with 
conditions  of  his  own  law,  within  which  alone  God  can 
exercise  the  pardoning  prerogative  Of  a  Supreme  Mon- 


200  DIVINE   MERCY   TO   PENITENCE. 

arch,  must  either  have  always  attached  to  the  Divine 
rule  over  men,  or  it  must  have  been  introduced  in  con- 
nection with  the  revelation  of  the  Gospel  by  Jesus 
Christ.  Now  any  single  case  by  which,  on  the  author- 
ity of  inspiration,  full  forgiveness  was  promised  on  sim- 
ple repentance,  without  reference  to  any  implied  or 
reserved  condition,  would  prove  that  the  Divine  admin- 
istration, as  revealed  to  men,  did  not  always  recognize 
this  limitation  of  the  prerogative  of  mercy.  Will  any 
one  venture  to  assert,  that  there  are  not  many  such  cases 
plainly  brought  before  us  in  the  Old  Testament  ?  But 
when  we  allege  any  such  case  in  which  forgiveness  is 
explicitly  promised  to  repentance  without  a  hint  of  any 
reserved  condition,  Orthodoxy  makes  a  bold  interpola- 
tion to  meet  the  straits  of  its  own  theory,  and  urges  that 
prospective  faith  in  the  mediatorial  sacrifice  of  Christ 
was  still  the  implied  ground  of  the  forgiveness.  What 
violent  dealing  with  Scripture  would  be  necessary  for 
the  sake  of  interpolating  this  theory,  will  appear  if  we 
attempt  to  make  the  required  insertion  into  any  text. 
Thus,  when  Ezekiel  says  that  a  wicked  man  turning 
from  his  iniquities  shall  be  forgiven  and  shall  live,  we 
must  supply  the  words,  "  through  the  efficacy  of  a 
sacrifice  which  the  expected  Messiah  is  to  offer  to  God." 
The  emphatic  sentence,  "  I  will  have  mercy  and  not 
sacrifice,"  must  be  made  to  read,  "  I  will  exercise  mercy 
on  condition  of  a  sacrifice."  Jesus  Christ  emphatically 
announced  the  pardoning  methed  of  God's  grace  for 
penitent  and  renewed  sinners,  as  exercised  independently 
of  any  agency  of  his  own.  This  method  must,  there- 
fore, have  been  applicable  to,  and  available  for,  those 
who  lived  before  it  was  confirmed  by  his  announcement 
of  it.  It  must  be  as  available  for  those  who  might 
never  know  of  his  announcement  of  it,  as  for  Christians 
who  receive  it  from  his  Gospel.  It  is  in  strict  conform- 
ity with  this  view,'  as  we  learn  from  the  Jewish  Scrip- 


THE  TERMS  OF  THE  OLD  COVENANT.        201 

tures,  that  there  was  no  other  condition  attached  in  the 
former  revelation  to  the  promise  of  Divine  forgiveness 
than  penitence  for  the  past  and  subsequent  obedience. 
What  else  is  the  significance  of  such  beautiful  passages 
as  the  following,  which  gem  the  Old  Testament:  "  To  the 
Lord  our  God  belong  mercies  and  forgivenesses,  though 
we  have  rebelled  against  him."  (Daniel  ix.  9.)  "  He  that 
covereth  his  sins  shall  not  prosper  ;  but  whoso  confesseth 
and  forsaketh  them  shall  have  mercy."  (Pro v.  xxviii.  13.) 
"  For  thou  desirest  not  sacrifice.  The  sacrifices  of  God 
are  a  broken  spirit."    (Psalm  li.  16,  17.) 

Such  were  the  explicit  and  benignant  terms  on  which 
the  pardoning  prerogative  of  God  was  exercised  before 
the  mission  of  Christ.  If  we  had  only  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  instruct  us,  it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that  not  a 
single  believer  or  reader  of  it  would  imagine  a  govern- 
mental theory  as  standing  between  God  and  the  exercise 
of  his  sovereign  mercy.  Christ  came  from  God  to  pro- 
claim a  free  and  universal  Gospel  from  the  Father  of  all, 
to  extend  the  blessings  heretofore  restricted  to  Jews  to 
all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  In  announcing  the  terms 
of  the  Divine  forgiveness,  did  Christ  introduce  any  alter- 
ation in  those  which  were  in  force  before  ?  Did  he  take 
from  them  or  add  to  them  ?  In  proclaiming  anew  the 
Divine  mercy,  did  he  make  our  enjoyment  of  it  depend 
upon  anything  that  he  was  himself  to  do  or  suffer  with 
a  view  to  satisfy  God?  Is  his  mediation,  besides  its 
manifest  purpose  of  bringing  us  to  repentance,  designed 
to  complement  the  deficiencies  of  that  repentance  as  a 
tribute  to  the  Divine  administration  ?  Did  the  death  of 
Christ  manifest  that  God  had  imposed  a  new  condition 
for  the  exercise  of  his  free  grace  ?  No !  There  is  no 
evidence  that  Christ  uttered  one  word  about  this  govern- 
mental theory.  It  certainly  does  not  appear  in  any  case 
in  which  he  himself  announced  forgiveness  to  the  peni- 
tent.    It  is  not  recognized  in  the  Parable  of  the  Prodi- 


202        THE  TERMS  OF  THE  OLD  COVENANT. 

gal  Son.  We  do  indeed  read  in  that  parable  of  the 
killing  of  a  fatted  calf,  in  connection  with  the  forgive- 
ness and  welcome  of  the  repentant  profligate ;  but  it 
was  to  heighten  the  joy  of  a  festival,  not  as  the  victim 
of  outraged  law.  We  find  no  hint  of  this  theory  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  which  teaches  us  to  look  for  forgiveness 
from  God  on  condition  that  we  forgive  others ;  nor  any 
hint  of  it  in  the  absolution  of  the  penitent  woman,  who 
was  forgiven  much  because  she  loved  much,  and  loved 
much  because  she  was  forgiven  much.  And  let  it  be 
observed  with  emphasis,  that  if  Christ  impaired  or  re- 
stricted the  terms  of  free  forgiveness  in  the  older  dispen- 
sation, the  Gospel,  instead  of  being  a  freer  and  a  wider, 
becomes  a  narrower  covenant.  The  attempt  to  evade 
this  objection  by  assigning  to  the  penitents  of  the  old 
dispensation  a  prospective  faith  or  an  anticipated  inter- 
est in  a  sacrifice  to  God's  law,  to  be  offered  by  Christ,  is 
a  mere  device  of  theologians,  —  a  pure  figment  of  their 
own  fancy.*  The  governmental  theory  is  compelled  to 
cover  with  its  benefit  Jews  who  cannot  be  shown  to 
have  had  any  knowledge  of  it,  and  then  it  stands  per- 
plexed as  to  what  it  shall  decide  concerning  the  fate  of 
the  heathen,  who  certainly  had  no  knowledge  of  it.  This 
is  indeed  a  sore  perplexity  to  Orthodoxy.  We  take  the 
substance  of  the  sublime  revelation  made  through  Peter 
concerning  a  heathen  man, — "  Of  a  truth  I  perceive  that 
God  is  no  respecter  of  persons ;  but  in  every  nation  he 

*  A  fair  specimen  of  the  ingenuity  of  theologians  in  supplying  the  omis- 
sions of  Scripture  by  the  baldest  inventions  of  their  own  fancy,  is  offered  in 
the  following  sentence  from  the  younger  Edwards  :  "  Did  not  Abraham  and 
all  the  saints  who  lived  before  the  incarnation  of  Christ,  and  who  were 
informed  that  atonement  was  to  be  made  for  them  by  Christ,  sincerely  consent  to 
it  and  earnestly  desire  it  ? "  (Second  Sermon  on  Grace  consistent  with 
Atonement.  New  Haven,  1785.)  We  do  indeed  read  of  those  who  "de- 
sired" to  see  and  know  in  what  the  scheme  of  Kevelation  was  to  issue, 
without  being  gratified.  But  Edwards  tells  us  that  they  not  only  knew,  but 
consented  to  it ! 


THE   OLD   AND   THE  NEW   COVENANT.  203 

that  feareth  him  and  worketh  righteousness  is  accepted 
with  him"  (Acts  x.  34, 35),  —  as  declaring  a  method  of  the 
merciful  rule  which  our  Father  in  heaven  exercises  over 
his  children,  independently  of  any  grace  won  for  them 
by  a  meritorious  offering  from  Christ.  It  proves,  at  any 
rate,  that  God  Could  show  mercy  to  those  who  had  never 
heard  of  Christ,  and  who  had  no  conscious  sense  of 
obligation  for  his  death.  But  Orthodoxy  is  confounded 
here  by  its  own  inventions.  We  have  seen  how  decid- 
edly Mr.  Flavel  and  Dr.  Hopkins  utter  themselves  as 
to  the  hopelessness  of  the  heathen.  Bishop  Butler  was 
wiser  on  this  point.  In  a  note  to  the  chapter  which  we 
have  already  quoted,  he  deprecates  the  inference,  from 
anything  that  he  says,  "  that  none  can  have  the  benefit 
of  the  general  redemption,  but  such  as  have  the  advan- 
tage of  being  made  acquainted  with  it  in  the  present 
life."  We  find,  too,  that  Orthodox  theologians  of  the 
present  day,  who  by  the  solvent  of  their  philosophy  make 
their  creed  elastic,  are  quite  willing  to  allow  that  the 
expiatory  sacrifice  of  Christ,  as  a  legal  offering,  will  im- 
part its  fullest  benefits  to  multitudes  who  have  had  no 
knowledge  of  it.  But  what  this  admission  gains  in  one 
direction  it  loses  in  another.  For  it  is  an  express  recog- 
nition that  repentance  is  the  actual  condition  of  salva- 
tion for  many,  and  the  sole  ground  of  it  as  known  to 
them;  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  so  exclusively  legal 
and  Godward  in  its  efficacy,  that  no  motive  or  sentiment 
drawn  from  it  is  absolutely  essential  for  its  operation  to 
the  benefit  of  men  ;  and  also  that  the  mediatorial  office 
of  Christ  in  heaven  bears  no  definite  relation  to  its  scope 
on  the  earth.  Now,  if  that  expiation  can  avail  for  multi- 
tudes who  are  ignorant  of  it,  and  who  draw  no  conscious 
motive  or  impulse  from  it,  why  should  it  be  wholly 
nugatory,  or  even  condemnatory,  as  it  is  said  to  be,  for 
those  who,  finding  every  other  grace  in  Christ,  cannot 
believe  that  God  required  or  that  Christ  made  any  legal 


204         OBJECTIONS   TO    THE    GOVERNMENTAL   THEORY. 

expiation  for  them  ?  Besides,  the  theory  in  this  point 
of  view  is  liable  to  much  of  the  objection  urged  by 
Protestants  to  that  of  the  supererogatory  merits  of  the 
saints,  by  which  a  large  balance  of  excess  of  merits 
was  supposed  to  be  set  against  the  account  of  the  emi- 
nently pious,  and  to  be  available  to  supply  the  deficien- 
cies of  those  for  whom  these  saints  would  intercede 
with  God.  Orthodoxy,  in  its  milder  moods,  gives  prom- 
ise of  salvation  to  the  heathen,  not  from  the  unex- 
hausted fulness  of  God's  fount  of  mercy,  but  from  the 
infinite  balance  entered  upon  the  ledger-book  of  heaven 
to  the  atoning  merits  of  Christ. 

If  it  be  asked,  Why,  under  our  view  of  the  Gospel  as 
proclaiming  essentially  the  same  message  of  free  for- 
giveness on  repentance  which  the  elder  dispensation 
announced,  we  should  depend  on  Christ  at  all,  and 
why  we  do  not  revert  to  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures for  our  teaching? — we  answer,  that  we  are  not 
Jews,  but  Gentiles,  and  that  as  Gentiles  we  receive  the 
doctrine  which  we  teach  from  Christ,  as  resting  upon 
his  authority.  He  is  to  us  what  the  Law  was  to  the 
Jews.  And  this  doctrine  is,  after  all,  the  real  point  of 
harmony  between  the  two  dispensations. 

Looking  with  a  keen  and  earnest  scrutiny  into  the 
terms  of  this  governmental  theory,  we  try  them  by  the 
tests  of  Scripture,  the  logic  of  truth,  and  the  uses  of 
piety.  The  theory  involves  two  conditions,  both  of 
which  must  be  united  in  its  statement,  and  be  au- 
thenticated as  its  warrant:  — 

First,  that  suffering  of  an  intense  character  must  in 
some  form  or  shape  be  offered  by  the  gailty  or  the  inno- 
cent as  a  tribute  to  the  violated  law  of  God ;  and  that 
Divine  mercy  cannot  possibly  remit  this  penalty  without 
making  grace  overthrow  righteousness. 

Second,  that  the  death  of  Christ,  by  a  method  and  in 
a  compound  nature  which  so  intensified  his  agonies  for 


THE   GOVERNMENTAL   THEORY   A   FICTION.  205 

a  few  hours  as  to  make  them  an  equivalent  for  the  eter- 
nal woe  of  a  doomed  race  of  human  beings,  is  looked 
upon  by  God  as  offering  to  him  and  to  his  law  that 
needful  penalty. 

From  the  first  verse  of  Genesis  to  the  last  verse  of 
the  Apocalypse,  the  Bible  will  be  searched  in  vain  for  a 
sentence  which  expresses  either  of  these  two  terms  of 
the  governmental  theory.  The  search  for  a  sentence 
which  contains  them  both  may  therefore  be  pronounced 
hopeless.  Give  us  one  such  sentence  from  the  lips  of 
Christ,  or  by  authority  from  him,  and  we  will  accept  the 
theory  as  of  revelation  from  God.  The  Bible  knows 
nothing  of  a  Divine  Mercy  bound  in  the  chains  of  Le- 
gality. Mercy  is  there  represented  as  the  supreme  at- 
tribute of  God,  and  not  as  needing  a  device  to  compen- 
sate its  relaxing  of  judgment.  The  limitless  expanses 
of  the  universe,  the  unmeasured  space  up  from  the  earth 
to  the  heaven  in  one  direction,  and  from  the  east  to  the 
west  in  another,  are  made  the  dimensions  of  its  scope. 
"  Mercy  rejoiceth  against  judgment,"  and  rejoiceth  over 
it,  —  not  one  word  being  interposed  about  legality.  The 
God  who  from  the  infinite  fountain  of  his  love  can 
forgive,  can  from  the  mildness  of  his  sceptre  remit. 

We  object  to  the  governmental  theory,  that  it  is  al- 
together an  inferential,  constructive  theory,  artificially 
wrought  out  by  the  brains  of  theologians,  not  distinctly 
revealed  nor  directly  taught  in  the  Scriptures.  Take 
the  simplest  form  of  language  in  which  it  has  ever  been 
stated,  and  observe  how  far  short  of  its  assertion  any 
passage  of  the  Scripture  will  fall  that  may  be  quoted 
in  proof  of  it.  We  grant  that  Orthodoxy,  by  the  aid 
of  inference  and  construction  and  ingenuity,  can  make 
out  an  argument  of  considerable  plausibility  in  support 
of  this  theory.  By  culling  and  bringing  together  scat- 
tered texts  of  Scripture,  and  relying  upon  the  associa- 
tions which  for  a  length  of  time  have  been  attached  to 
18 


206  SACRIFICIAL  LANGUAGE   OF  THE  EPISTLES. 

them  through  the  sharper  view  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement,  and  then  by  skilfully  arranging  these  texts 
and  assimilating  their  repelling  elements  by  a  logic  quite 
natural  to  theologians,  a  marvellous  show  of  apparent 
authority  may  be  claimed  for  the  theory.  In  practised 
hands,  guided  by  an  earnest  heart  and  a  mind  already 
prepossessed  by  Orthodox  influence,  the  theory  admits  of 
quite  a  forcible  statement.  When  subtilty  of  reasoning, 
and  partiality  of  interpretation,  and  ardent  piety  qualified 
by  the  restraints  of  dogma,  engage  upon  this  theory,  the 
result  even  looks  formidable  to  some  who  feel  that  they 
are  held  to  withstand  it.  The  strength  of  the  theory 
now  lies  in  old  associations  attached  to  texts  under 
the  influence  of  another  view  of  the  sacrificial  doctrine. 
A  perfect  mosaic-work  of  symbols,  phrases,  and  sen- 
tences, picked  from  between  the  covers  of  the  Bible, 
polished  down  and  filled  in  and  held  together  by  the 
cement  of  human  ingenuity,  is  made  to  produce,  by  a 
highly  artificial  process,  such  a  representation  as  will 
answer  to  an  immolated  victim  who  is  pleading  with 
Heaven,  not  with  earth.  Certain  glowing  Orientalisms 
of  speech  which  have  a  free  and  lofty  spiritualism,  and 
some  ritualistic  images  of  quite  a  different  tone,  are 
wrought  together,  and  petrified  into  hard  literalisms,  and 
stiffened  into  forms  which,  when  reproduced  in  our  own 
language,  are  false  to  the  truth.  As  Mr.  Jowett  has  re- 
marked in  his  Essay  on  the  Atonement,  —  so  significant 
a  production  as  coming  from  an  Oxford  theologian, — 
"  Where  the  mind  is  predisposed  to  receive  this  theory, 
there  is  scarcely  a  law  or  a  custom  or  rite  or  purifica- 
tion or  offering  in  the  Old  Testament  which  may  not 
be  transferred  to  the  Gospel."  It  has  often  been  cast  as 
a  reflection  upon  Unitarians,  that  in  their  discourses  they 
have  allowed  some  of  the  sacrificial  terms  applied  to 
Christ  in  the  Epistles  to  fall  out  of  their  common  use. 
We  know  not  but  that  the  censure  has  the  apparent 


THE   GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY  A  FICTION.  207 

justification  of  fact.  But  if  so,  it  would  be  averted  by 
those  whom  it  concerns,  by  the  plea,  that,  though  Uni- 
tarian theologians  find  no  difficulty  whatever,  nor  the 
slightest  embarrassment,  in  the  real  significance  of  such 
terms,  they  do  believe  that  very  erroneous  associations 
have  warped  and  perverted  them  for  popular  use.  Mr. 
Jowett  has  admirably  indicated  the  process  by  which 
the  writers  of  those  Epistles  through  force  of  their 
own  previous  associations  with  the  shambles  and  al- 
tars of  sacrifice,  were  led  to  cast  some  of  their  Christian 
conceptions  in  the  mould  of  their  own  former  ideas.  If 
to  this  fact  —  a  fact  which  critical  Scripture  students 
will  less  and  less  be  disposed  to  question  as  their  noble 
toil  advances  —  be  added  an  allowance  for  the  associa- 
tions which  Calvinistic  theology  has  connected  with  the 
sacrificial  terms  of  the  Epistles,  we  should  find  it  no 
difficult  work  to  justify  a  temporary  disuse  of  some 
phrases  of  misconstrued  Scripture.  When  popular  views 
have  been  recast,  and  popular  belief  has  been  conformed 
to  the  Scriptural  doctrine,  old  language  and  old  imagery 
may  suggest  their  true  meaning. 

But  we  have  dropped  that  plea  in  defence  of  others ; 
for  ourselves  we  do  not  need  it.  We  also  have  gathered 
together  every  sentence  from  the  New  Testament,  and 
from  the  Old  too,  which  Orthodoxy  works  into  the  mosaic 
composition  and  statement  of  its  governmental  theory. 
We  have  the  fair  transcript  before  us.  We  know,  we 
think  we  know,  the  force  and  meaning  of  such  sentences, 
and  the  significance  of  most  of  them.  And  again  we  say, 
that  they  do  not  contain  or  intimate  either,  much  less 
both,  of  the  two  conditions  stated  above  as  entering 
into  the  governmental  theory.  It  is  claimed  that  the 
Orthodox  have  a  great  advantage  over  us  in  this,  that 
while  we  have  to  make  a  somewhat  vague  and  unde- 
fined statement  to  express  the  mode  of  efficacy  of  the 
death  of  Christ,  they  are  able  to  state  it  very  definitely. 


208  CONTINUOUS   SCHEME   OF  REDEMPTION. 

True.  But  while  they  have  to  state  it  in  terms  and 
phrases  and  formulas  of  their  own,  instead  of  allowing 
Scripture  to  state  it  for  them,  the  advantage  on  their 
side  is  at  least  neutralized.  We  had  rather  take  refuge 
under  the  large  ambiguities  of  some  Scripture  phrases, 
than  define  them  rigidly  by  adding  phrases  of  our  own. 
While  we  have  laid  down  our  pen  within  the  last  hour, 
we  have  read  the  following  sentence  in  the  columns  of 
the  week's  paper  of  our  "  Congregationalist "  brethren 
(May  2):  "  The  Lamb  of  God,  slain  for  the  forgiveness 
of  human  sins."  The  sentence  is  a  very  definite  one ; 
but  it  is  equally  unwarrantable  as  a  most  startling  per- 
version of  Scripture. 

The  Bible  teaches  us  that  the  whole  plan  of  redemp- 
tion, with  all  its  incidents  and  stages,  was  contemporane- 
ously arranged  in  the  Divine  mind.  It  was  a  continuous 
scheme  slowly  developed  to  the  knowledge  and  experi- 
ence of  man.  Inspired  prophets  caught  anticipatory 
glimpses  of  stages  in  it  which  were  not  to  be  realized 
till  long  after  their  day.  The  scheme  was  to  culminate 
in  a  suffering  Messiah.  The  Lamb  was  slain,  his  death 
was  foreseen  at  the  very  commencement  of  the  dispen- 
sation :  "  before  the  foundation  of  the  world."  Now 
the  fact  that  the  scheme  results  in  the  death  of  Christ 
has  led  to  the  inference  that  the  death  of  Christ  under 
a  legal  view  of  its  purpose  was  really  the  substance  of 
the  scheme,  and  that,  as  no  stage  of  it  had  any  signifi- 
cance except  what  it  derives  from  the  result,  so  the  legal 
view  of  the  death  of  Christ  is  in  truth  the  whole  sub- 
stance of  the  scheme  of  revelation.  If  this  is  not  an 
inferential  and  constructive  theory,  we  should  be  at  loss 
to  find  one  among  all  the  conceptions  of  human  brains. 
We  believe  that  each  step  and  process  in  the  scheme 
was  complete  in  its  operation  for  its  own  date  in  time, 
and  for  the  subjects  of  it.  The  old  Hebrews  did  indeed 
"  drink  of  the  spiritual  rock  which  followed  them,  which 


OLD   TESTAMENT   SACRIFICES   NOT  TYPICAL.  209 

rock  was  Christ,"  but  it  was  because  the  virtue  of  the 
whole  scheme  was  concentrated  in  every  element  in  it. 
"  The  mystery  which  had  been  hid  from  ages  and  gener- 
ations "  was  the  result  which  was  "  made  manifest " 
only  to  Christians ;  but  its  blessings  were  not  deferred 
till  its  disclosure,  nor  made  dependent  on  the  method  of 
its  disclosure. 

Orthodoxy  enters  into  an  elaborate  argument  to  prove 
that  the  sacrificial  offerings  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
all  typical  of  the  great  sacrifice,  and  took  their  validity 
from  that.  How  inconclusive  and  defective  and  incon- 
sistent that  argument  is,  will,  we  think,  appear  to  every 
one  who  will  examine  it  without  prepossession.  It  fails 
at  the  application  of  each  test  of  criticism,  evidence, 
authority,  and  analogy.  Not  the  most  distant  intimation 
is  given  in  the  Old  Testament  that  the  ritual  sacrifices 
looked  beyond  themselves  to  an  anticipation  of  the  sacri- 
fice of  Christ.  Not  a  word  can  be  quoted  from  Law- 
giver, Prophet,  or  Priest,  to  prove  that  such  a  reference 
was  had  in  view.  The  aim  and  efficacy  of  those  sacri- 
fices were  complete  in  themselves;  and  a  close  study 
of  all  that  is  enjoined  in  connection  with  those  sacrifices 
will  persuade  us  of  the  very  slight  importance  attached 
to  them  except  in  a  ceremonial  way.  They  are  not 
invested  with  the  awe,  nor  set  forth  with  the  solemnity, 
which  would  belong  to  them  as  the  shadows  cast  back 
from  the  cross.  The  only  one  of  all  the  offerings  of  the 
Jews  which  was  said  to  "  bear  the  sin  of  the  people," 
was  not  immolated,  sacrificed,  or  slain,  but  was  sent  off 
into  the  wilderness.  It  is  remarkable,  likewise,  that  the 
Levitical  sacrifices  were  enjoined  in  a  routine  way, 
without  the  slightest  reference  to  the  state  of  mind  or 
feeling  with  which  they  were  offered.  It  was  not  them 
and  repentance,  according  to  the  priestly  ritual,  but  them 
alone.  The  Prophets  seem  even  to  have  stood  as  pro- 
testers against  the  Priests  in  this  matter,  in  insisting 
18* 


210  HEATHEN    SACRIFICES  IDEALIZED. 

upon  the  worthlessness  of  the  offering  except  as  it  in- 
dicated a  contrite  heart,  which  was  the  better  of  the 
.two.  But  what  the  Prophets  thus  insisted  upon  as  the 
greater,  namely,  humiliation,  contrition,  and  repentance, 
the  governmental  theory  would  persuade  us  were  all 
secretly  subordinated  to  a  prospective  sacrifice.  When 
we  quote  to  our  opponents  the  sentiment  approved  by 
Jesus,  —  that  to  love  God  and  one's  neighbor  "  is  more 
than  all  whole  burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices"  (Mark  xii. 
33),  —  the  reply  is,  "that  is  the  very  loftiest  and  most 
exacting  demand  of  the  Law,  exhaustive,  impossible  of 
obedience  by  us,  and  therefore,  as  we  do  not  come  up 
to  it,  we  need  a  sacrifice  for  us."  No  !  we  rejoin.  We 
need  mercy.  In  no  instance  recorded  does  Christ  make 
a  retrospective  reference  to  the  effect  that  he  is  giving 
efficacy  to  the  repentance  of  penitents  under  the  old 
dispensation.  Nor  can  any  assertion  be  quoted  as  from 
him,  that  under  all  circumstances,  whenever  and  wher- 
ever a  sinner  is  redeemed  and  saved,  it  is  on  condition 
or  in  consequence  of  his  death. 

Yet  not  only  from  the  Jewish,  but  even  from  the 
heathen  sacrifices,  would  Orthodoxy  draw  types  and 
foreshadowings  of  a  great  legal  victim.  The  foul  and 
impious  offerings  of  Paganism,  brute  and  human,  with 
all  their  revolting  horrors,  are  made  to  yield  one  gleam- 
ing ray  of  pure  light  as  testifying  to  the  strong  instinc- 
tive conviction  of  the  human  heart  that  God  must 
be  approached,  even  by  penitence,  with  a  propitiation. 
When  we  attempt  to  bring  home  to  our  thoughts  the 
fearful  reality  intimated  in  this  incidental  illustration 
of  the  governmental  theory,  so  intense  is  the  horror 
which  it  excites,  that,  were  it  not  for  the  restraining 
influence  of  Christian  respect  for  those  with  whom  we 
differ,  we  should  charge  them  with  confounding  the 
purest  and  holiest  element  of  the  Gospel  with  the  most 
hideous  element  of  heathenism.     We  utterly  and  almost 


SIGNIFICANCE   OF   THE  CROSS.  211 

indignantly  reject  this  dreadful  fancy.  We  reject  it  alike 
in  its  use  of  heathen  and  of  Jewish  sacrifices.  It  seems 
to  us  a  most  degrading  view  of  the  redeeming  work  of 
the  holy  Jesus  to  say  that  his  final  offering  of  love  had 
been  foreshadowed  for  ages  in  the  sacrifices  of  brute 
beasts.  Strained  visions  of  prophets  and  kings,  longing 
hopes  of  devout  hearts  in  humble  scenes  of  life,  and 
angelic  anthems  ringing  their  symphonies  in  the  ears  of 
shepherds,  are  the  befitting  heraldings  of  "  the  desire 
of  all  nations."  But  the  bloody  shambles  of  fed  beasts 
and  the  reeking  altars  of  a  blinded  idolatry,  are  images 
which  no  transfiguration  can  elevate  into  types  of  the 
Lamb  of  God. 

God  had  forbidden  the  Jews  to  offer  human  sacrifices, 
as  abhorrent  to  him.  We  tremble  as  we  ask  the  ques- 
tion which  forces  itself  upon  us,  —  Would  God  signalize 
the  abrogation  of  the  Jewish  code  by  offering  for  men 
a  human  victim,  and  thus  make  the  crowning  act  of 
human  sin  the  essential  condition  for  the  expiation  of 
all  sin  ?  It  is  Mr.  Jowett  of  Oxford  who  uses  the 
words,  "the  greatest  of  human  crimes,  that  redeems 
the  sin  of  Adam  by  the  murder  of  Christ." 

We  have  said,  that  we  had  before  us  all  the  passages 
from  the  Bible  which  connect  our  redemption  with  the 
sufferings  of  Christ,  and  that  we  had  weighed  their  im- 
port, without  finding  in  them  either,  still  less  both,  of 
the  terms  involved  in  the  governmental  theory.  We 
are  not  about  to  quote  those  passages  to  show  how 
each  of  them  falls  short  of  authenticating  that  theory. 
With  the  briefest  glance  over  specimen  passages  of  such 
a  tenor,  we  gather  sentences  like  these  :  —  "he  hath 
borne  our  griefs"  ;  "  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgres- 
sions "  ;  "  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him, 
and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed";  "his  soul"  [his 
life]  was  made  "  an  offering  for  sin  "  ;  "  he  bore  our  sins  "  ; 
"  he  purged  our  sins  " ;  "  he  suffered  for  our  sins  "  ;  he 


212  CHRIST  MADE   SIN  FOR  US. 

died  "  for  the  remission  of  our  sins  "  ;  he  "  laid  down 
his  life  for  us  "  ;  "  he  redeemed  us  to  God  by  his  blood  " 
[his  death] ;  "  he  gave  his  life  a  ransom  for  many  "  ;  "  he 
was  delivered  for  our  offences  "  ;  "  he  is  the  propitiation 
[the  mercy-seat]  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world."  But 
where  in  all  these  sentences,  looking  man-ward  for  all  the 
solemn  and  sacrificial  efficacy  of  the  sufferings  they  ex- 
press, do  we  find  any  intimation  of  a  God-ward  design, 
necessity,  or  working  of  a  legal  expiation  ?  We  read, 
"  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin 
of  the  world."  It  is  the  sin  which  he  takes  away.  But  the 
governmental  theory  would  require  the  passage  to  read, 
u  who  taketh  away  the  punishment  of  the  world."  We 
read,  that  "  Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of 
the  Law,  being  made  a  curse  for  us."  (Gal.  iii.  13.) 
Leaving  unnoticed  the  confusion  caused  to  our  minds 
by  the  use  of  the  word  Law  to  define  both  the  Mosaic 
and  the  moral  law,  which  makes  us  uncertain  whether 
the  Apostle  meant  more  than  that  the  death  of  Christ 
relieved  Gentiles  from  subjection  to  the  old  legal  code, 
we  remind  ourselves  that  it  was  man,  not  God,  who 
made  Christ  "  a  curse,"  and  treated  him  as  if  he  were 
accursed.  We  read,  "  For  he  hath  made  him  to  be  sin 
for  us,  who  knew  no  sin."  (2  Cor.  v.  21.)  The  Rev.  A. 
P.  Stanley,  of  Oxford,  Canon  of  Canterbury,  in  his  re- 
cent work  on  the  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians,  construes 
the  passage  thus:  "  He  was  enveloped,  lost,  overwhelmed 
in  sin  and  its  consequences,  so  far  as  he  could  be  with- 
out himself  being  sinful."  And  he  paraphrases  it  thus  : 
"  The  object  for  which  He  devoted  the  sinless  One  to  the 
world  of  sin  was,  that  I,  and  you  with  me,  might,  through 
and  with  that  sinless  One,  be  drawn  into  the  world  of 
righteousness."  The  scholarly  works  of  Jowett  and 
Stanley  are  most  profitable  study  for  those  who  are 
resolved  that  the  Apostles  shall  not  use  a  single  trope, 
or  other  rhetorical  figure,  without  having  it  urged  into  a 


THE  LOGIC  OF  THE  GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY.    213 

literal  interpretation.  If  a  thousand  passages  of  a  tenor 
similar  to  the  above  were  to  be  quoted  from  Scripture, 
they  would  all  fail  of  conveying,  by  any  fair  interpre- 
tation, an  idea  of  Christ's  death  as  a  sacrifice  to  God. 
There  is  indeed  one  passage  which  speaks  of  Christ's 
offering  for  us  as  "a  sacrifice  to  God."  But  the  very 
aroma  of  the  phrase  connected  with  it  relieves  it  of 
its  literal  construction.  The  sacrifice  of  Christ  must 
have  been  of  such  a  nature,  that  we  can  regard  it  as  "  a 
sweet-smelling  savor"  to  God.  (Eph.  v.  2.)  The  song 
of  the  redeemed  in  the  Apocalypse  to  Christ  is,  "  Thou 
wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed  us  to  God  by  thy  blood 
[thy  death]."  (Rev.  v.  9.)  This  is  the  burden  of  the 
whole  Gospel  strain.  But  where  do  we  find  in  it  an 
intimation  of  the  legal  theory  of  a  substituted  victim  to 
God  ?  It  is  characteristic  of  all  the  figures  of  speech 
used  in  the  Scriptures,  that  they  are  constantly  varied, 
played  upon,  presented  in  changing  aspects,  balancing 
and  mutually  explaining  each  other.  Christ  is  not  only 
called  the  Redeemer,  but  also  the  ransom  money;  not 
only  the  payer  of  our  debt,  but  also  the  price  of  our  dis- 
charge ;  he  not  only  bears  or  takes  up,  lifts  and  carries, 
our  sins,  but  he  also  bears  our  diseases.  But  who  would 
force  either  of  these  terms  to  such  an  interpretation  as 
would  compel  us  to  say  that  Christ  became  palsied, 
deaf,  and  blind,  in  the  process  of  relieving  human  mala- 
dies ?  The  very  variety  of  the  symbols  and  images  used 
concerning  him  indicates  that  they  are  symbols  and 
images. 

If  we  submit  the  governmental  theory  to  the  test  of 
logic,  we  find  it  assailable  and  vulnerable  at  the  very 
points  in  which  it  most  needs  to  be  strong.  It  may  be 
a  misconception  of  our  own,  but  we  think  we  discern  in 
most  modern  statements  a  shrinking  from  a  full,  direct, 
unqualified  expression  of  it,  while  affectionate  and  dep- 
recatory phrases  are  connected  with  it.     Now  if  it  is  to 


214    THE  LOGIC  OF  THE  GOVERNMENTAL  THEORY. 

be  asserted,  let  it  be  with  all  the  frankness  and  boldness 
becoming  a  fundamental  theory  of  the  relations  between 
God  and  man.  To  our  minds,  the  title  of  legality,  the 
very  idea  and  substance  of  law  in  the  sense  of  equity, 
are  perverted  in  the  theory.  We  are  told  that  the  law  is 
outraged,  and  the  sanctions  of  justice  are  defied,  if  the 
guilty,  even  when  penitent,  are  freely  forgiven.  But 
into  our  very  idea  of  law  enters  the  condition,  that  the 
penalties  of  its  violation,  if  inflicted  at  all,  shall  be  visit- 
ed on  the  transgressor.  Which  contingency  would  the 
more  peril  our  reverence  for  law,  the  remission  of  its 
penalties,  or  the  infliction  of  them  on  the  innocent  ? 
Etymologists  derive  our  word  mercy  from  the  Latin 
merces,  a  reward  or  payment ;  and  they  tell  us  that  the 
connection,  which  is  in  fact  a  separation,  of  the  mean- 
ings is  to  be  explained  thus,  —  that  when  the  next  of 
kin  to  a  murdered  person  received  a  money  equivalent 
for  the  murder,  he  yielded  to  the  payment  and  returned 
mercy.  It  is  a  most  tortuous  definition,  and  is,  we 
think,  in  this  respect,  similar  to  the  working  of  the  gov- 
ernmental theory.  When  Orthodoxy  fetters  God's  exer- 
cise of  mercy  by  the  restraints  of  his  penal  law,  it  forgets 
that  the  Divine  Lawgiver  can  harmonize  his  own  laws  of 
justice  and  of  mercy.  Mr.  Jowett  says,  in  his  Essay  on 
the  Atonement,  that  the  theory  affirms  "  that  there  were 
some  impossibilities  in  the  nature  of  things  which  pre- 
vented God  from  doing  otherwise  than  he  did.  Thus 
we  introduce  a  moral  principle  superior  to  God,  just  as 
in  the  Grecian  mythology  fate  and  necessity  are  superior 
to  Jupiter."  He  also  says,  that  the  view  of  the  sufferings 
of  Christ,  as  a  sort  of  "satisfaction  to  God,"  "interposes 
a  painful  fiction  between  God  and  man."  Orthodoxy 
makes  the  difficulty  which  it  professes  to  find  for  God 
in  looking  for  a  device  for  mediating  between  his  mercy 
and  his  justice.  Not  regarding  penitence  as  a  compe- 
tent mediation,   it   interposes   a  victim.      The   Apostle 


THE   SUFFERINGS    OF   CHRIST.  215 

speaks  of  God's  being  "just,  and  the  justifier  of  him 
which  believeth  in  Jesus,"  as  if  the  two  assertions  were 
identical.  Orthodox  pleaders  are  in  the  habit  of  inter- 
polating the  word  yet  in  the  sentence,  thus,  "  and  yet  the 
justifier,"  &c,  as  if  the  two  assertions  needed  reconciling. 
Even  Professor  Stuart  makes  that  interpolation  when  he 
quotes  the  passage. 

We  shrink  from  following  the  lead  of  Orthodox  dis- 
putants into  the  dread  audacity  of  seeking  to  define  and 
measure  the  degree  of  intensity  in  the  sufferings  endured 
by  Christ.  Sure  we  are,  that  no  statement  of  Scripture 
presents  the  question  of  the  amount  of  those  sufferings 
as  deciding  their  purpose.  If  there  be  one  point  in  this 
controversy  which,  from  the  shock  it  causes  to  our  sen- 
sibilities, we  should  pronounce  to  be  forbidden  ground  to 
all  parties,  it  is  this.  We  have  much  of  bold  and  offen- 
sive assertion  upon  it,  copied  from  various  writers  lying 
before  us,  but  we  forbear  to  transfer  it  to  our  pages. 
Calvin,  arguing  from  the  Saviour's  momentary  dismay, 
that  his  sufferings  were  more  than  human,  says :  "  What 
disgraceful  effeminacy  would  this  have  been  to  be  so 
distressed  by  the  fear  of  a  common  death,  as  to  be  in  a 
bloody  sweat,  and  incapable  of  being  comforted  without 
the  presence  of  angels ! "  *  But  the  younger  Edwards 
emphatically  declares  that  the  suffering  "  was  barely 
that  of  the  man  Christ  Jesus,"  as  "the  Eternal  Logos 
was  not  capable  of  enduring  misery."  f  And  yet  there  is 
something  vital  to  the  theory  before  us  dependent  upon 
the  ascribing  an  intensified  degree  of  suffering  to  Christ, 
in  order  that  his  suffering  might  be  of  infinite  value. 
The  Orthodox  dogma  is  to  us  hopelessly  confused  here 
by  variance  of  testimony  and  definition  among  its  gen- 
eral advocates.     Some,  with  Calvin  and  Hopkins,  tell  us 


*  Institutes,  Book  II.  Chap.  XVI. 

t  Third  Sermon  on  Atonement  and  Free  Grace. 


216         THE  ENDS  OP  THE  DIVINE  LAW. 

that  God  died.  Others  tell  us  that  this  is  impossible  in 
fact,  and  unallowable  in  statement,  while,  like  Dr.  Pond, 
they  ascribe  some  influence  from  the  Divine  nature  to 
what  was  endured  in  the  human  nature  of  Christ.  But 
Orthodoxy  perils  its  theory  by  definitions  and  explana- 
tions. What  was  it  for  God  to  pass  through  the  show 
of  dying  as  a  man  ?  It  could  not  be  real  tragedy. 
Was  it  a  drama?  No!  It  was  real  in  what  it  was, 
not  fiction  in  anything.  The  pleading  petition  of  Christ, 
"  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me ! "  is 
to  us  inexplicable,  if  Jesus  had  entered  into  a  covenant 
with  God  by  the  terms  of  which  he  knew  that  the  re- 
moval of  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  exercise  of 
Divine  mercy  to  all  our  race  depended  upon  his  sacrifice 
to  God.  The  petition  needs  no  explanation,  if,  in  con- 
formity with  the  view  we  have  presented  of  the  consist- 
ency between  such  a  close  of  his  ministry  and  its  whole 
tenor,  Jesus  for  a  moment  addressed  to  his  Father  the 
struggle  of  his  own  spirit,  "  Must  I  drink  of  this  cup  ?  " 

If  we  wished  to  make  an  exhaustive  statement  of  the 
objections  to  be  offered  against  even  the  consistency  of 
this  legal  theory  with  the  elementary  principles  and  the 
majestic  equities  of  true  law,  we  should  need  the  space 
which  we  have  already  used.  Especially  should  we 
urge  with  earnestness,  that  forgiveness  on  penitence  does 
not  in  any  case  peril  the  authority  of  the  Divine  law. 
One  who  has  truly  repented  needs  no  dramatic  offering 
to  impress  him  with  an  adequate  sense  of  the  evil  of  all 
sin.  His  own  breast  is  the  best  testimony  to  him.  The 
forgiven  penitent  is  not  harmed  by  the  exercise  of  mercy 
toward  him ;  the  impenitent  sinner  is  not  hardened  by 
the  announcement  of  mercy  to  the  contrite.  All  the 
attempted  analogies  which  Orthodoxy  tries  to  institute 
between  school  discipline,  or  human  tribunals,  and  the 
Divine  administration,  fail  at  the  most  important  points. 
Of  course,  a  judge  on  the  bench  of  a  human  court  can- 


SIN  NOT   YET   COMMITTED   ALREADY   EXPIATED.        217 

not  discharge  a  professedly  repentant  criminal.  The 
judge  cannot  know  if  the  penitence  be  sincere,  nor  has 
the  criminal  sinned  in  matters  which  injure  only  that 
judge,  nor  does  the  judge  make  or  execute  the  law. 
But  do  we  err  in  intimating  that,  if  by  any  infallible  test 
human  tribunals  could  know  what  criminals  of  every 
degree  had  thoroughly  turned  from  all  wickedness  to 
righteousness,  the  voice  of  the  merciful  in  a  community 
might  plead  for  their  discharge  ?  An  analogy  drawn 
between  the  parental  government  of  a  household  and 
the  Divine  administration  would  give  us  the  best  illus- 
tration of  what  a  mild  but  firm  method  of  law  and 
benignity  requires.  A  kind  parent  asks  only  for  contri- 
tion in  an  erring  child.  He  forgives  the  penitent.  His 
law  is  satisfied. 

"What  shall  we  say,  too,  of  this  legal  theory,  as  respects 
the  terms  by  which  God  is  to  forgive  all  the  sin  that  is 
ever  henceforward  to  be  committed  by  the  unborn  mil- 
lions of  our  race  who  shall  live  on  the  earth  ?  God  has 
already  received  the  funded  payment  which  shall  make 
their  repentance  available  for  forgiveness,  says  the  theory. 
All  coming  sinners  are  to  plead  an  interest  in  the  past 
sacrifice  of  Christ.  The  victim  which  was  by  anticipa- 
tion available  for  the  penitents  of  old  times,  is  by  retro- 
spection available  for  all  future  time.  "  How  am  I  to 
be  forgiven  for  the  sins  I  may  commit  next  year?" 
asks  one  who  hopes  that  up  to  to-day  he  is  pardoned. 
"Draw  upon  the  infinite  fund  of  purchased  grace,"  is  the 
answer.  Not  in  irony,  not  for  offence  upon  the  cher- 
ished convictions  of  any  disciple,  but  in  serious  per- 
plexity, in  troubled  anxiety,  do  we  express  something 
beyond  mere  misgivings  here.  And  in  the  same  spirit, 
deprecating  intended  offence,  we  utter  what  comes  to 
our  thoughts.  When  Tetzel,  the  broker  of  the  indul- 
gences sent  forth  by  the  Pope,  sold  for  money  tickets  of 
pardon  for  past  sins,  Roman  casuistry  might  plead  that 
19 


218  THE  DOCTRINE   THAT   QUICKENS   PIETY. 

the  pardon  granted  by  them  was  merely  a  remission  of 
ecclesiastical  penalties.  But  when  he  proposed  to  fur- 
nish for  a  graduated  scale  of  prices  tickets  which  should 
absolve  offenders  for  any  sins  they  might  in  future  com- 
mit, his  traffic  presented  itself  to  Luther  in  the  shame 
of  its  full  enormity.  We  disclaim  utterly  any  analogy 
here  with  anything  in  the  legal  theory.  We  adduce 
the  instance  merely  to  define  this  one  objection,  that 
sins  which  are  virtually  forgiven  before  they  are  com- 
mitted must  lose  something  of  their  dread  for  the  con- 
science, while  repentance  for  them  is  divested  of  some- 
thing of  its  imperative  necessity  as  the  operative  condi- 
tion of  pardon. 

We  have  but  a  word  to  utter  in  conclusion  bearing 
upon  the  relation  between  the  governmental  theory  of 
Atonement  and  the  uses  of  piety.  No  word  of  ours  shall 
question  the  testimony  of  the  believers  of  that  theory,  as 
confessing  to  its  power  over  their  own  hearts.  Into  the 
sanctuaries  of  human  breasts  we  will  not  intrude,  cer- 
tainly not  as  disputants.  We  challenge  an  oft-repeated 
assertion  simply  as  it  indicates  an  attempt  to  monopo- 
lize a  disciple's  love  and  reverence  and  gratitude  to 
Christ,  and  to  insist  that  the  grace  of  his  reconciliation 
shall  flow  to  the  human  heart  only  in  one  channel.  It 
is  claimed  that  the  Orthodox  view  of  the  Atonement 
is  pre-eminently,  almost  exclusively,  favorable  to  true 
Christian  piety ;  that  from  contemplating  Christ  as  such 
a  sacrifice  for  such  an  intent,  and  as  making  by  such  a 
method  our  peace  with  God,  the  heart  is  most  pro- 
foundly penetrated  with  horror  for  sin,  with  a  sense  of 
the  need,  the  cost,  and  the  value  of  redemption,  and  that 
the  fervor  and  glow  and  gratitude  of  that  heart  are  thus 
most  effectually  kindled  toward  the  Saviour.  Be  it  so 
to  all  who  can  thus  testify.  They  cannot  love  Christ 
too  much,  whatever  be  their  view  of  the  grounds  or 
method  of  that  love.  What  he  has  done  for  us  admits 
of  no  measurement,  and  it  is  for  what  he  has  done  that 


THE  CENTRAL  TRUTHS  AND  SYMBOLS  OF  PIETY.   219 

he  claims  the  full  tribute  of  our  hearts.  But  may  we 
suggest,  not  from  theory,  but  from  the  recorded  experi- 
ence of  Christians  of  various  communions,  that  Chris- 
tian hearts  have  chosen  different  central  truths,  different 
symbols  of  piety,  different  images  and  objects  out  of  the 
rich  treasures  of  devotion  to  set  before  them  in  their 
various  shrines  and  oratories?  The  Roman  Catholic 
exalts  beyond  all  other  sacred  and  fond  objects  in  his 
heart,  the  Virgin  Mary.  Her  graces  and.  sorrows,  her 
sword-pierced  breast,  her  motherly  office  for  God,  her 
queenly  prerogative  in  heaven,  and  the  prevalence  of  her 
intercession,  have  made  her  to  millions  of  professed 
Christians  the  fountain  of  their  piety,  the  altar  of  their 
worship,  the  sweet  assurance  of  all  their  faith.  The 
most  acute  dialectics  of  the  most  skilful  apologists  of 
Romanism  cannot  make  clear  to  the  least  prejudiced  of 
Protestants  how  "  devotion  to  Mary  "  differs  from  what 
the  Christian  owes  to  God.  Again,  the  mystic  pietist 
finds  the  central  theme  of  his  devotion,  and  the  fullest 
nourishment  for  his  spiritual  affections,  in  the  "Divine 
Love."  His  highest  moods  of  peace  and  joy  and  faith 
are  ministered  to  when  he  yields  himself  to  the  fruition 
of  the  sentiment  to  which  he  gives  expression  in  those 
words  of  unfathomed  meaning.  Other  types  of  Chris- 
tian piety,  comprehending  larger  or  smaller  numbers  of 
affiliated  souls,  engage  the  inner  choice  of  classes  of 
Christian  disciples,  according  to  the  delicacy,  the  cul- 
ture, the  depth,  the  intelligence,  or  the  refinement  of 
their  whole  being.  It  is  unwise  and  unsafe  to  attempt 
to  concentrate  the  whole  motive  energy  of  piety  upon 
any  one  truth  or  element  of  a  universal  religion.  Each 
grateful  heart  is  free  to  express  its  own  experience,  and 
to  indicate  the  point  of  view  in  which  the  Gospel  scheme 
gathers  for  itself  the  brightest  beams  of  all  the  light  that 
it  reflects  from  heaven.  But  beyond  this  expression  of 
personal  experience,  we  question  the  right  of  any  heart 
to  give  rules  for  the  method  of  spiritual  radiation  to 


220  DIVIDED   FELLOWSHIPS. 

other  hearts.  And  especially  would  we  object  to  any 
theory  which  makes  a  formula  upon  the  method  of  rec- 
onciliation through  Christ  to  monopolize  or  to  exhaust 
the  compass  of  the  Gospel  influence  over  the  various 
sympathies  and  exercises  of  human  hearts. 

And  now  we  have  to  confront  the  conclusion  to 
which  our  long,  and  we  fear  wearisome,  debate  has 
brought  us.  Orthodoxy,  not  willing  to  allow  each  be- 
liever to  interpret  to  his  own  mind  and  heart  the  Scrip- 
ture method  of  the  efficacy  of  Christ's  reconciling  work, 
insists  that  its  own  constructive  view  expressed  in  its 
doctrinal  formula  must  be  accepted  as  the  condition  of 
acknowledged  Christian  discipleship.  Because  we  re- 
ject this  constructive  view,  we  are  pronounced  to  be  out- 
side of  the  pale  of  Evangelical  communion.  We  regret 
the  decision.  We  regret  it  on  account  of  the  Orthodox 
themselves,  for  it  compels  us  to  qualify  our  respect  and 
affection  for  them,  seeing  that  they  usurp  a  right  which 
their  Master  and  ours  never  gave  them,  and  seeing  that 
they  prove  faithless  to  their  own  Protestant  principles. 
We  regret  the  decision  on  our  own  account,  for  we 
should  love  to  share  the  sympathies,  and  to  participate 
in  the  labors  and  hopes  and  noble  enterprises  of  those 
whom  we  still  regard  as  brethren  in  Christ.  We  regret 
the  decision,  but  we  will  not  mourn  over  it.  It  has  no 
ecclesiastical  penalties  to  visit  upon  us  for  which  we 
care  one  straw.  It  has  now  no  inquisition,  no  ballot- 
box  even,  to  turn  its  dogmatic  test  into  a  torment  or  an 
annoyance.  It  cannot  deprive  us  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship, for  whatever  we  may  say  of  numbers,  we  have  a 
fellowship  of  our  own,  of  men  and  women,  who,  while 
they  consent  to  reject  in  every  shape  and  form  the 
dogma  of  a  God-ward  efficacy  in  the  living  or  the  dying 
work  of  Christ,  accord  in  a  better  and  a  more  tender  view 
of  the  great  Redemption,  as  devised  by  the  love  of  God, 
and  perfected  by  the  love  of  Christ.  We  too  love  him 
because  he  laid  down  his  life  for  us. 


UNITARIANISM  AND   ORTHODOXY 


ON 


THE     SCRIPTURES 


19* 


UNITARIANISM  AND  ORTHODOXY 


THE   SCRIPTURES. 


No  controversial  discussions  concerning  the  doctrines 
of  Scripture  can  be  thoroughly  pursued  without  involv- 
ing sooner  or  later  an  incidental  controversy  upon  the 
authority  of  Scripture,  and  the  right  principles  of  its 
interpretation.  At  whatever  point  an  issue  bearing 
upon  this  subject  is  raised,  it  leads  on  step  by  step 
to  all  the  questions  opened  by  biblical  criticism.  The 
character  and  composition  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole  ;  the 
nature  of  its  contents ;  its  age,  sources,  and  authors ;  its 
natural  and  its  supernatural,  its  historical,  prophetic, 
and  spiritual  elements ;  its  relations  to  other  literature 
and  to  the  demonstrative  and  physical  sciences ;  its 
exposure  to  assaults  upon  its  credibility ;  and  its  means 
and  methods  of  defence,  —  all  these  large  and  perplexing 
themes  present  themselves  for  treatment  by  the  aid  of 
such  powers  as  belong  to  the  human  mind  under  the 
guidance  of  a  various  and  progressive  culture.  Nor 
does  even  this  specification  of  some  of  the  more  impor- 
tant elements  of  a  necessary  task  exhaust  all  the  inci- 
dental topics  which  enter  into  it.  The  more  thorough 
and  deliberate  and  microscopic  the  criticism,  the  more 


224       THE  BIBLE  BROUGHT  UNDER  DEBATE.       * 

abundant  and  suggestive  appears  the  material  of  it. 
Delicate  questions  about  the  exact  meanings  of  words 
in  ancient  languages,  and  even  in  our  own,  and  about 
the  translation  of  words  and  phrases  from  dead  into 
living  tongues,  are  to  be  debated  by  scholars,  who  must 
afterwards  set  forth  the  results  of  their  study  in  a  style 
intelligible  to  the  unlearned.  The  figurative  uses  of 
language,  idioms,  Orientalisms,  and  metaphors,  compli- 
cate the  discussion.  And  crowning  all  comes  the  great 
theme  of  Inspiration,  —  the  meaning  of  the  word,  the  evi- 
dence of  the  thing,  the  compass  and  extent  of  its  influ- 
ence,—  whether  it  covers  all  the  contents  of  the  Bible  or 
only  a  part  of  them,  and  what  part,  —  whether  it  was  con- 
fined to  the  original  writing,  and  so  has  been  impaired 
by  the  risks  of  time,  of  manuscripts  and  their  transla- 
tion into  various  languages,  or  whether  the  gift  is  of 
such  a  nature  that  its  fruits  are  essentially  preserved  in 
every  faithful  transcript  and  version  of  the  record. 

Some  unreflecting  persons  complain,  at  the  very  out- 
set, that  such  a  multitude  of  questions  of  such  a  nature 
should  be  opened  at  all,  to  perplex  simple  understand- 
ings, to  impair  in  any  way  the  confidence  with  which 
people  love  to  read  the  Bible,  to  peril  the  authority,  or 
to  bring  under  debate  the  truth  or  value,  of  any  of  its 
contents.  The  same  persons  are  apt  to  charge  these 
consequences  upon  the  Unitarian  Controversy,  and  to 
hold  Unitarians  answerable  for  an  unfair  dealing  with 
the  Scriptures,  tending  to  unsettle  their  Heaven-authen- 
ticated claims.  In  this  topic  of  controversy  between 
those  once  brethren,  as  well  as  in  the  discussion  of  the 
great  doctrinal  questions  to  some  of  which  we  have 
devoted  many  pages,  the  leading  aim  and  purpose  of 
Unitarians  was  in  part  misunderstood  and  in  part  mis- 
represented. The  views  of  Scripture,  and  of  the  proper 
way  of  treating  it,  to  which  they  were  brought  in  the 
exercise  of  their  best  intelligence,  as  honest  thinkers  and 


THEORIES   AND   THEIR  CONSEQUENCES.  225 

careful  students,  were  represented  by  their  opponents 
as  wanton  and  daring  results  of  a  spirit  of  pride  and 
unbelief.  Unitarians  adopted  their  opinions  from  the 
compulsory  influence  of  facts  and  arguments,  whose 
force  they  could  not  resist.  They  did  not  hold  and 
advance  their  views  because  their  inclinations  misled 
them,  for  they  felt  that  they  were  yielding  to  the  simple 
force  of  truth,  the  straits  and  necessities  of  the  case. 
We  have  therefore  first  of  all  to  remind  ourselves  how 
such  questions  as  relate  to  the  authority  and  the  right 
interpretation  of  the  Bible  were  naturally  and  necessa- 
rily opened  in  the  controversy,  how  just  the  grounds  of 
them  were  and  are  still,  and  how,  when  they  have  been 
opened,  candor  and  truth  require  that  they  should  be 
met.  Wise  and  considerate  men  have  often  been  per- 
plexed when  confronted  with  the  consequences  of  their 
own  theories ;  and  though  it  may  be  a  token  of  courage, 
it  is  certainly  no  proof  of  wisdom,  to  regard  such  conse- 
quences, when  of  a  very  perplexing  or  alarming  charac- 
ter, with  entire  indifference,  and  as  wholly  without  force 
against  our  theories.  Whether  in  the  adoption  of  a 
principle  or  a  theory  we  should  have  in  view  the  inevi- 
table consequences,  the  practical  effects,  which  will  fol- 
low from  it,  is  a  question  on  which  those  who  have 
concerned  themselves  with  it  have  been  divided;  the 
dividing  line  being  generally  drawn  so  as  to  commit  all 
mere  theorists  to  a  disregard  of  consequences,  while 
those  who  have  been  compelled  to  face  consequences 
have  insisted  that  they  should  be  had  in  view  in  the 
formation  of  theories.  It  will  be  found  at  the  close  of 
our  present  discussion,  that  the  main  issue  between  the 
Unitarian  and  the  Orthodox  views  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
the  proper  way  of  treating  them,  centres  around  this 
question :  Shall  we  start  with  a  theory  about  the  inspira- 
tion, the  authority,  and  the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures, 
which  recognizes  the  qualifications  and  abatements  and 


226  IDOLATRY  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

embarrassments  that  will  be  sure  to  confront  us  as  we 
meet  the  trial  of  that  theory,  —  or  shall  we  assume  the 
very  highest  position  possible,  and  then  ingeniously  con- 
test, or  grudgingly  allow,  the  various  objections  of  a  fair 
and  reasonable  character  which  invalidate  our  position  ? 
Shall  we  form  our  theory  in  view  of  certain  facts  which 
we  must  sooner  or  later  deal  with  in  verifying  our 
theory,  —  or  shall  we  adopt  a  theory  which  will  compel 
us  to  deal  uncandidly  or  unsatisfactorily  with  facts  that 
are  plainly  inconsistent  with  it  ? 

When  the  Unitarian  Controversy  commenced  here,  it 
found  prevailing  in  the  popular  mind,  so  far  as  that  was 
in  subjection  to  the  popular  theology,  an  almost  idola- 
trous estimate  of  the  Bible.  This  popular  view  of  it 
allowed  no  discrimination  in  the  value  or  authority  of 
its  various  contents,  and  would  scarcely  tolerate  any 
debate  which  went  beyond  the  apparently  literal  mean- 
ing of  the  English  version.  In  their  use  of  the  Bible, 
the  people  recognized  no  right  of  choice,  no  range  for 
discrimination.  It  was  all  Bible.  Indeed,  a  reader  of 
the  old  tracts  and  sermons  of  our  fathers  is  led  to  the 
persuasion,  that  they  spent  the  hardest  toil  upon  the 
least  profitable  portions  of  the  Scriptures.  That  they 
found  those  portions  edifying,  only  proves  how  diligently 
they  wrought  upon  them.  Very  many  of  their  devoted 
ministers  are  known  to  have  spent  years  of  industrious 
zeal  in  writing  extended  expositions  or  commentaries 
upon  the  whole  Bible,  or  upon  its  larger  or  smaller 
compositions.  A  few  specimens  of  such  comments  on 
books  or  chapters  are  in  print,  but  no  complete  work  of 
the  kind  from  their  pens  has  ever  been  published.  Cot- 
ton Mather's  voluminous  exposition  still  lies  in  manu- 
script in  the  cabinet  of  our  Historical  Society.  Several 
generations  of  ministers,  in  the  full  sincerity  of  their 
own  earnest  faith,  had  inculcated  a  view  of  the  Bible 
which  modern  opinions  regard  as  superstitious.     They 


CREDULITY  AND   SCEPTICISM  ABOUT  THE   BIBLE.      227 

had  fostered  this  view,  and  insisted  upon  it  as  vital  to 
faith  and  the  ends  of  edification.  To  what  extent  this 
estimate  of  the  Bible  in  the  minds  of  believers  was 
balanced  by,  or  even  accountable  for,  a  lurking  or  a 
full  developed  scepticism  and  unbelief  in  the  minds  of 
others,  we  of  course  cannot  know.  Our  knowledge  of 
the  workings  of  human  nature  and  the  facts  which  ex- 
perience presents  us  in  our  own  day  of  free,  outspoken 
dissent  from  the  popular  belief,  would  warrant  the  infer- 
ence that  multitudes  of  the  inquisitive  and  the  restless 
in  mind  entertained  misgivings,  though  they  might  keep 
silence  about  them.  It  would  seem  that  the  common 
rule  applied  here  as  in  other  matters,  that  when  the 
standard  of  belief  made  an  excessive  and  arbitrary  ex- 
action, a  readiness  to  recognize  it  on  the  part  of  some 
was  offset  by  an  immoderate  rebellion  to  it  on  the  part 
of  others.  Much  of  the  confessed  and  latent  unbelief  of 
our  day  is  the  costly  penalty  paid  by  a  grown-up  gener- 
ation for  the  austerities  and  exactions  with  which  faith 
was  connected  in  the  training  of  their  childhood.  But 
as  the  popular  view  of  the  Bible  was  made  the  standard 
for  belief,  all  who  for  any  reason  could  not  accept  it 
were  left  to  make  such  abatements  of  it,  or  to  find  such 
a  substitute  for  it,  as  they  could,  practising  meanwhile 
such  reserve  of  tongue  as  prudence  or  fear  might  dic- 
tate. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that,  in  all  the  voluminous  and 
unfinished  discussions  which  have  been  pursued  on  this 
high  theme  of  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  the  witness 
whose  testimony  is  of  chief  relevancy  and  importance 
has  received  the  least  attention.  All  other  tests  and 
arguments  have  taken  precedence  of  that  which  would 
bring  the  Bible  to  a  trial  through  its  own  claims  and 
contents.  Common  sense  suggests  that  no  reason  for 
demanding  for  it  the  reverence  and  faith  of  men  could 
possibly    be    offered   from    any  external  source  or  any 


228  THE   BIBLE  IN   OLD   TIMES. 

subordinate  grounds,  which  would  compare  in  cogen- 
cy with  its  own  internal  warrant.  How  far  the  old 
popular  view  of  the  authority  of  all  the  contents  of 
the  Bible  is  warranted  by  any  claims  set  up  for  them- 
selves^ is  a  question  which,  to  our  knowledge,  has  never 
been  tried  thoroughly  and  candidly  by  a  discussion 
unbiassed  by  any  other  considerations.  We  must  de- 
fer any  dealing  with  that  question  until  we  have 
briefly  noticed  some  of  the  extraneous,  incidental,  his- 
torical, and  conventional  influences  which  helped,  at 
least,  very  effectively  to  support,  and,  as  we  sincerely  be- 
lieve, to  originate,  a  view  of  the  contents  of  the  Bible, 
as  a  whole,  that  is  not  warranted  by  any  claims  which 
they  advance  for  themselves. 

The  Bible  has  been  a  book  in  popular  circulation,  free 
to  the  use  of  all  Protestant  readers,  for  a  little  more  than 
three  hundred  years.  For  the  greater  portion  of  that 
time,  and  for  all  but  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  masses 
of  its  readers,  it  has  been  perused  and  interpreted  under 
the  restraints  of  some  external,  ecclesiastical,  or  doctri- 
nal teaching.  For  long  ages  after  its  contents  had  been 
gathered,  it  was  withdrawn,  kept  back  from  popular  use, 
in  part  from  the  policy  of  the  priesthood,  in  part  from 
the  necessity  of  the  case,  as  its  cost,  when  written  on 
parchment,  was  heavy,  and  those  who  could  read  were 
comparatively  few.  The  Bible,  indeed,  was  never  in 
the  possession  of  more  than  a  very  few  private  owners 
until  after  the  Reformation.  Before  the  Christian  era, 
a  few  wealthy  Jews  might  have  copies  of  parts,  or  even 
of  the  whole,  of  the  Old  Testament  made  for  them  by 
the  Scribes ;  but  the  families  of  Israel  looked  to  the 
temple  and  the  synagogues  for  their  knowledge  of  its 
contents.  Faith  then  came  wholly  by  hearing,  not  from 
reading.  When  the  two  Testaments  had  been  united 
in  one  or  more  volumes,  copies  were  so  rare  that  they 
were  not  found  in  the  libraries  of  all  the  churches,  con- 


FIRST  FREE   USE   OF   THE   BIBLE.  229 

vents,  monasteries,  and  universities.  Occasionally,  the 
choice  cabinet  of  a  monarch  contained  a  copy.  That  the 
Christian  world  could  have  kept  its  faith  and  worship 
so  long  without  depending  upon  the  popular  use  of  the 
Bible,  would,  after  all,  be  the  most  effective  argument  in 
support  of  the  policy  of  the  Roman  Church  in  its  pro- 
hibition of  the  Bible,  were  it  not  for  the  counter  argu- 
ment which  Protestants  would  instantly  advance,  in 
urging  that  the  faith  and  worship  which  prevailed 
while  the  Bible  was  hid  away  were  not  consistent 
with  Christian  purity  and  truth. 

Luther  and  Erasmus  parted  friendship  at  the  Refor- 
mation, when  the  former,  in  resolute  opposition  to  the 
judgment  or  the  fears  of  the  latter,  resolved  upon  the 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  into  the  common  tongue, 
for  the  free  use  of  his  countrymen.  The  knowledge  that 
there  was  such  a  volume  as  the  Bible,  the  difficulty  of 
procuring  it,  the  excitement  raised  by  the  expectation  of 
it,  the  fact  that  it  was  identified  with  the  Protestant 
cause,  in  antagonism  with  all  the  corruptions  and  in- 
ventions and  additions  of  Romanism,  made  the  multi- 
tude most  eager  to  obtain  it  Considering  that,  as 
Luther  said,  "  the  Papists  burned  the  Bible  because  it 
was  not  on  their  side,"  we  can  hardly  over-estimate 
the  zeal  and  longing  of  the  people  to  secure  it.  The 
license  included  on  the  title-page  of  our  English  Bibles, 
though  passed  unnoticed  by  many  readers,  tells  a  bur- 
dened tale.  "Appointed  to  be  read  in  churches,"  is 
the  royal  warrant  which  goes  with  the  once  forbidden 
book.  When  that  warrant  first  accompanied  a  version 
in  our  own  tongue,  every  one  who  could  obtain  a 
Bible  was  free  to  possess  it,  and  all  who  had  the  pre- 
cious gift  of  knowledge  might  read  it.  To  read  it 
was  to  interpret  it  in  some  way.  And  what  a  valued 
possession  it  was  is  hardly  to  be  realized  now,  as  the 
flood  of  literature  floats  by  us.  What  an  intense  and 
20 


230  POPULAR    ENTHUSIASM   OVER  THE   BIBLE. 

deep  joy  has  been  experienced  by  millions  of  hearts  over 
that  book !  Not  only  must  it  "  be  read  in  churches," — 
it  might  be  read  in  homes,  by  the  way-side,  anywhere, 
everywhere.  As  the  larger  portion  of  the  people  of 
England  were  then  unable  to  read,  others  who  had  the 
gift  would  be  to  them  the  medium  of  its  joy  and  instruc- 
tion. We  can  p'aint  to  ourselves  many  impressive  and 
touching  scenes  of  which  it  was  the  centre.  It  took  the 
place  and  performed  the  service  of  priest  and  altar,  of 
confessor  and  teacher,  of  counsellor  and  judge,  to  thou- 
sands of  persons.  It  repeated  the  Pentecostal  miracle 
of  preaching  the  Gospel  to  every  one  in  the  tongue  in 
which  he  was  born.  It  represented  in  the  household  all 
the  sanctities  connected  with  the  Church,  the  Sabbath, 
the  grave,  and  the  hope  that  extends  beyond  it.  We 
still  see,  in  some  of  the  rural  parish  churches  of  England, 
the  solid  folio  Bible  held  by  a  strong  ring  and  chain  to 
the  reading-desk  as  in  days  of  yore  ;  when,  after  the  hours 
of  public  worship,  the  minister  having  retired,  simple 
villagers,  with  grave  and  reverent  mien,  gathered  around 
some  old  man  or  woman,  or  some  youth  or  maiden  rich 
in  the  blessings  of  the  mind,  and  listened  to  the  precious 
pages.  Every  one  of  those  pages  was  a  revelation,  and 
we  may  be  sure  that  such  perplexities  as  the  narratives 
now  present,  not  of  scholarship,  science,  or  criticism,  but 
from  the  questionings  of  an  unsophisticated  mind  or 
heart,  received  as  fair  and  full  a  solution  as  the  best 
wisdom  of  the  world  has  ever  since  given  to  them.  For 
nearly  a  century  and  a  half  portions  of  Wickliffe's  trans- 
lation had  been  read  in  English  rural  homes  by  wander- 
ing apostles  of  the  new  light,  and  each  multiplication 
of  copies  in  that  or  in  subsequent  versions  extended  the 
circle  of  readers  and  hearers.  We  may  infer  that,  to  those 
who  had  been  trained  on  monkish  legends  and  lore,  the 
Bible  was  of  easy  learning,  offering  but  rare  occasion  for 
raising  distinctions  in  its  contents. 


NEW  ENGLAND   PIETY  AND   THE   BIBLE.  231 

It  could  not  be  but  that  such  a  book,  so  demanded  as 
a  designed  gift  from  Heaven,  so  prized,  so  used,  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  poor  superstitions  and  services  performed  in 
a  dead  language,  would  draw  to  itself  the  deepest,  fond- 
est, purest  attachment  of  human  hearts.  It  was  living 
truth  conveyed  in  the  language  of  household  life,  that 
gave  to  the  lessons  of  the  Bible  their  sacred  charm  and 
power.  For  of  all  the  reproaches,  stern  or  gentle,  visited 
upon  the  policy  of  the  Roman  Church,  the  most  wither- 
ing of  all  must  be  confessed  to  be  this,  that  the  very 
language  which  she  chose  for  all  her  services  became  a 
dead  language ;  her  piety  could  not  keep  alive  the  tones 
and  forms  of  her  speech,  and  the  spell  of  delusion  which 
was  laid  upon  her  withheld  her  from  change.  The  Bible 
was  found  worthy  of  all  the  affectionate  trust  which  it 
received,  and  affection  and  confidence  alone  in  it,  how- 
ever unlimited,  never  harmed  and  never  can  harm  any 
one.  Only  when  the  mind  —  the  curious,  searching,  de- 
bating mind  —  asserts  its  own  prerogative,  does  that 
unlimited  confidence  begin  to  falter,  and  need  to  be 
confirmed  or  restored  by  some  deliberate  methods  of 
inquiry  and  discrimination. 

But  the  piety  of  New  England,  and  of  those  in  the 
Old  World  who  were  in  sympathy  with  the  faith  that 
was  first  nurtured  in  this  wilderness,  accepted  the  Bible 
—  the  whole  Bible  —  in  the  fondest  reliance  of  the  whole 
heart  and  mind.  Every  family  owned  a  Bible,  and 
every  member  of  each  family  read  it,  studied  it,  or  heard 
it  and  revered  it.  All  were  either  teachers  or  taught  by 
it.  Children  were  named  after  its  worthies.  Occasion- 
ally, too,  names  were  borrowed  from  it  in  baptism  of 
those  who  were  not  among  its  worthies,  on  the  ground, 
perhaps,  that  being  in  the  Bible,  no  matter  how  poorly 
they  figured  there,  was  warrant  enough  for  perpetuat- 
ing them.  Precedents,  examples,  and  warnings  were 
quoted  from  the  Bible,  as  from  the  whole  world's  his- 


232  FIRST   SUGGESTIONS   OF  BIBLICAL   CRITICISM. 

tory  of  all  past  ages,  and  from  the  Sibylline  prophecies 
of  all  that  was  to  come.  The  Bible  was  actually  ac- 
cepted here  as  a  statute-book  of  civil  and  criminal  law 
till  a  code  could  be  deliberately  framed ;  and  when  a 
code  had  been  digested,  Bible  legislation  furnished  its  ba- 
sis and  its  penalties.  It  was  well-nigh  forgotten  that  the 
Bible  was  not  written  in  English,  and  that  it  had  ever 
been  translated.  The  intermediate  agency  of  men,  in 
penning,  gathering  up,  authenticating,  transcribing,  and 
transmitting  its  contents,  was  well-nigh  lost  sight  of; 
and  as  God  was  the  leading  subject  of  the  book,  its 
authorship  was  directly  referred  to  him. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  ill  those  who  had  been 
educated  under  this  warm,  confiding,  and  entire  reliance 
upon  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  would  bear  the  first  bold 
dealings  of  criticism  with  it,  however  cautious  or  rever- 
ent might  be  the  language  of  such  criticism.  Painful 
and  startling  was  the  first  experience  of  this  kind. 
When  the  natural  popular  feeling  against  the  intima- 
tions of  criticism  found  expression  through  the  teachers 
and  defenders  of  the  popular  theology,  it  was  to  have 
been  expected  that  some  severity  of  judgment  should 
have  followed.  Those  who  began  to  discriminate  be- 
tween parts  of  the  Bible, — to  raise  questions  about  the 
relative  value  and  authority  of  its  several  contents, — 
to  suggest  new  renderings  of  important  passages,  and 
to  intimate  the  possibility  of  error  introduced  by  time 
or  chance  in  successive  copies,  or  even  into  the  origi- 
nal, by  lack  of  knowledge  or  false  reasoning,  —  those 
who  opened  here  these  now  familiar  "  offences,"  were 
prepared  to  be  misunderstood.  They  had  great  reason, 
however,  to  complain  of  being  grossly  misrepresented. 
Time,  with  its  wonderful  revolutions,  has  realized  a 
signal  triumph  for  our  early  Unitarians  in  this  direc- 
tion. As  we  shall  show  before  we  close  this  essay, 
those  who    claim    a  doctrinal   succession  from  the  as- 


OPPOSITION   TO   BIBLICAL  CRITICISM.  233 

sailants  of  Unitarians  have  accepted,  ratified,  and  in- 
dorsed to  the  full  all  the  positions  taken  by  those  who 
bore  the  odium  of  first  reducing  the  popular  idolatry  for 
the  letter  of  the  Bible.  We  utter  boldly  the  unquali- 
fied assertion,  and  stand  ready  to  maintain  it  in  the 
lists  of  fair  scholarship,  that  all  the  leading  and  es- 
sential canons  of  criticism,  and  all  the  qualifications 
and  limitations  which  the  most  esteemed  Unitarian 
divines  applied  to  the  Scriptures,  have,  within  a  few 
years,  been  recognized  as  just  by  eminent  writers  in 
various  Orthodox  communions.  The  American  Unita- 
rian Association  has  now  in  preparation  a  Commen- 
tary and  Exposition  of  the  New  Testament.  Such  a 
work,  covering  both  Testaments,  might  be  made  to 
the  perfect  satisfaction  of  our  fellowship,  every  line  of 
whose  necessary  comments  and  dissertations  should 
be  compiled  from  nominally  Orthodox  volumes.  As 
we  survey  the  crowded  pages  now  before  us,  contain- 
ing carefully  culled  extracts  embracing  admissions  and 
assertions  from  distinguished  Orthodox  divines  in  the 
field  of  biblical  criticism,  and  then  recall  how  Uni- 
tarians were  once  abused  for  saying  the  same  things, 
we  feel  a  profound  respect  for  men  who  nobly  led  on 
a  work  of  consecrated  toil  and  manly  courage  in  the 
spirit  of  Christian  fidelity  to  truth. 

But  the  protest  first  raised  against  the  ventures  of 
criticism  was  earnest  and  foreboding;  doubtless,  too, 
it  was  sincere,  however  wise,  discreet,  and  just  —  or  the 
opposite  of  all  those  epithets  —  it  may  have  been.  The 
appeal,  in  censure  and  protest,  was  in  substance  and 
tone  as  follows :  —  If  you  cannot  substantiate  your 
new  views  by  the  letter  of  the  English  Bible,  just  as 
we  and  our  fathers  have  been  reading  it  for  centuries, 
give  up  the  matter.  Stick  to  the  letter  as  it  stands, 
and  accept  the  established  authority.  The  wise  and 
good  have  found  nutriment  for  their  piety  in  a  faith 
20* 


234  PROTEST  AGAINST  BIBLICAL   CRITICISM. 

which  never  looked  behind,  beyond,  or  under  the  Eng- 
lish version,  and  you  will  become  no  better  than  they 
were,  —  no  wiser,  no  more  enlightened  in  the  truth,  — 
by  meddling  with  a  jot  or  tittle  in  the  text.  Forego 
the  exercise  of  your  bold  reason,  your  proud  imagina- 
tion. If  you  find  difficulties,  humble  yourself  before 
them :  you  ought  to  expect  difficulties,  and  there  is  a 
merit  in  succumbing  to  them,  while  it  is  wicked  to 
practise  your  ingenuity  upon  them.  Question  every- 
thing else,  if  you  will ;  let  philosophy,  and  science, 
and  politics,  and  trade,  and  social  theories  hang  all  in 
the  wind,  as  open  debates,  as  themes  to  try  all  your 
wits  ;  task  yourself  on  these  as  you  please ;  exercise 
your  fancy,  your  zeal,  your  spirit  of  opposition,  your 
eccentricity,  your  obstinacy,  as  you  will  upon  them ; 
but  leave  us  the  Bible  untouched,  unchallenged.  There 
ought,  at  least,  to  be  one  thing  sacred  from  dispute, 
from  cavilling,  from  tricks  of  debate,  from  ingenious 
speculation,  from  the  assaults  of  human  pride,  which 
so  readily  pass  into  scoffs  at  what  is  to  be  revered. 
The  interests  of  religion  require  and  demand  this 
reservation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  of  every  line 
which  they  contain,  from  all  such  presumptuous  risks. 
It  is  the  condition  on  which  alone  they  can  be  of 
best  use  —  of  any  real,  edifying  use  —  to  simple  men 
and  women.  You  cannot  press  any  such  treatment  as 
you  propose  upon  the  Bible,  without  at  once  raising 
unfair  distinctions  between  Christians  as  regards  the 
terms  of  salvation  and  a  knowledge  of  those  terms. 
But  scholars  are  here  entitled  to  no  prerogative  be- 
yond the  unlearned.  We  all  stand  on  a  level  before 
that  book ;  we  have  no  right  to  judge  it,  for  it  is  to 
judge  us.  Let  it  remain  respected,  revered,  holy.  As 
the  Heaven-appointed  style  of  an  altar  required  that 
no  tool  should  be  used  upon  it,  so  the  Bible  should 
stand  free  of  any   profaning  touch   from   man.     Yield 


THE   BIBLE   PRECIOUS   TO   ALL.  235 

to  it  and  secure  to  it  such  an  unqualified  regard,  that, 
wherever  any  one  opens  to  it,  he  may  feel  sure  that 
he  is  reading  what  was  writ  by  God,  that  the  plain- 
est sense  of  it  is  the  truest,  the  literal  meaning  the 
right  meaning,  and  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  addressing 
him  in  every  sentence. 

Such  was  the  appeal  made  in  behalf  of  the  Bible 
against  those  whose  questions  and  critical  processes 
were  met  by  intimidation  or  foreboding.  The  plea 
was  spoken  in  various  tones  of  kindness  or  severity, 
of  courtesy  or  insolence,  and  it  was  enforced  by  vari- 
ous measurements  of  breadth  or  narrowness  of  intelli- 
gence, against  those  who  first  opened  here  the  now 
familiar  discussions,  critical,  philosophical,  or  sceptical, 
concerning  the  contents  or  the  authority  of  the  Bible. 

From  the  tone  and  temper  in  which  this  plea  has 
often  been  spoken,  one  might  suppose  it  was  ad- 
dressed to  some  reckless  and  ruthless  men,  utterly 
indifferent  to  religion  themselves,  and  bent  only  up- 
on unsettling  the  faith  of  others.  That  those  who 
were  thus  remonstrated  with  had  an  interest  of  their 
own  at  stake  in  the  Bible  fully  equal  to  that  of  any 
others,  and  were  as  heartily  and  vitally  concerned  in 
all  the  questions  thus  raised,  is  but  the  suggestion  of 
common  sense.  For  who  is  there  that  connects  his 
own  hope  and  faith  with  the  Bible,  but  would  rejoice 
with  all  his  heart  and  mind  to  yield  to  this  appeal 
in  all  its  warmth  and  earnestness  ?  Are  we  not  all 
equally  interested  in  a  revelation  from  God,  in  the 
volume  which  contains  it,  in  asserting  its  authority, 
and  in  maintaining  the  infallibility  of  the  record,  if 
it  be  infallible  ?  It  is  preposterous  for  one  class  of 
believers,  who  are  ready  to  blink  all  biblical  perplex- 
ities for  themselves,  and  to  offer  unsound  and  inad- 
equate explanations  of  them  to  the  weak,  the  con- 
fiding, and    the   credulous    whom  they  may  influence, 


236  THE  BIBLE  AND   THE   COMPASS. 

to  address  another  class  of  their  fellow-men,  who  give 
proof  of  honest  motives,  as  if  they  were  seeking  to 
discredit  the  Bible  because  they  opened  their  eyes  to 
obvious  difficulties  in  it.  It  is  as  if  one  set  of  mari- 
ners should  rail  at  another  set  for  attempting  to  specu- 
late upon,  calculate,  measure,  and  allow  for  the  vari- 
ations of  the  compass,  —  the  compass  on  which  all 
alike  depend,  and  by  which  all  alike  are  glad  to  steer. 
Is  there  an  honest  and  sincere  person  on  the  earth  who 
would  not  be  grateful  for  an  infallible  Bible,  or  who 
would  be  disposed  to  pick  flaws  in  it  ?  Are  those  who 
have  given  years  of  scholarly  toil  to  the  study  of  the 
Bible  —  all  unrequited  except  as  the  result  has  cleared 
and  strengthened  their  own  faith  by  reducing  alike 
their  superstitious  prejudices  and  their  doubts  —  to  be 
assailed  as  a  set  of  religious  Vandals  ?  And  if,  as  the 
deduction  of  intelligent  and  fair  biblical  criticism,  it 
should  appear  that,  within  a  few  very  definite  restric- 
tions and  qualifications,  a  few  guards  of  caution,  and 
a  few  allowances  for  manifest  error,  the  Bible  is  enti- 
tled to  the  character  for  infallibility  which  popular  belief 
has  set  up  for  it,  would  not  the  critics  who  verified  and 
proclaimed  the  fact  be  the  heartiest  sharers  in  the  con- 
fidence it  would  afford  ?  When  the  variations  of  the 
compass  have  been  reduced  to  rule,  its  guidance  is  fol- 
lowed as  implicitly  as  if  it  were  subject  to  no  varia- 
tions. Let  the  highest  standard  be  set  for  the  authority 
and  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible  which  honest  truth 
will  allow,  and  we  may  safely  affirm  that  there  is  not 
a  single  right-minded  person  in  the  community  who 
would  turn  coldly  away  from  it,  or  willingly  do  or  say 
anything  to  detract  from  it. 

But  the  very  occasion  for  making  such  an  appeal 
is  an  intimation  that  it  relies  not  wholly  on  fact,  but 
somewhat  on  feeling  and  fear,  and  on  a  conscious  mis- 
giving  as    to    its   entire   validity.     The    appeal   could 


MOTIVES   OF  UNITARIAN   CRITICS.  237 

not  avert  criticism,  and  it  cannot  stifle  it.  Doubt  and 
inquiry  had  the  start  of  the  appeal,  and  had  already- 
preoccupied  the  ground.  The  strife  began  at  this  very 
point.  Apprehension  got  the  better  of  courage,  and  re- 
monstrances, often  charged  with  abuse,  were  substituted 
for  arguments.  The  question  forced  itself  upon  trial, 
not  whether  the  Bible  could  be  rescued  from  the  schol- 
ar's or  the  sceptic's  touch,  but  whether  it  could  fairly 
and  fearlessly  stand  the  test,  which  it  ought  not  for  one 
moment  to  dread,  if  it  were  worthy  of  the  confidence 
claimed  for  it.  If  God  had  written  it,  his  hand  and 
mind  might  safely  be  left  to  vindicate  their  work.  If 
it  had  passed  unharmed  through  the  risks  of  ages,  of 
transcription  and  translation,  it  need  not  quail  before 
the  dictionary,  the  grammar,  or  the  commentary.  The 
explorer  of  the  Egyptian  catacombs,  the  curious  anti- 
quarian digging  away  the  sand  from  the  plains  of  As- 
syria, or  marking  out  the  sites  of  the  seven  churches 
of  Asia,  could  not  discredit  the  record.  The  chronologist 
by  old-world  cycles,  eclipses,  and  royal  dynasties,  the 
geologist  gathering  up  the  medals  of  creation,  the  mari- 
ner on  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  traveller  through 
Southern  Italy,  would  never  unsettle  the  Scriptures  of 
Moses  or  Paul.  The  timidity  of  the  champions  of  the 
Bible  would  bring  its  claims  into  peril  far  more  than 
would  the  boldness  of  its  challengers. 

So  far  as  the  discussions  connected  with  the  Unita- 
rian Controversy  are  had  in  view,  we  feel  at  liberty  to 
say  that  Unitarians  as  a  class  have  made  a  loyal  recog- 
nition of  the  paramount  importance  of  true  Scriptural 
knowledge  by  the  labors  they  have  spent  upon  the  origi- 
nal text,  and  by  their  scholarly  zeal  to  authenticate 
and  interpret  it.  In  view  of  facts,  of  which  unfortu- 
nately the  evidence  is  painfully  abundant  in  current  re- 
ligious literature,  it  is  the  sincere  conviction  of  Unita- 
rians, uncharitable  as  the  confession  of  it  may  seem, 


238  UNITARIAN  VIEW   OF  THE   SCRIPTURES. 

that  many  Orthodox  writers,  for  the  sake  of  sustaining 
unimpaired  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  deal  disingenu- 
ously with  difficulties  to  which  they  really  cannot  close 
their  own  eyes  or  those  of  common  readers.  Orthodoxy 
attempts  to  hide  from  observation,  or  to  make  too  light 
of,  some  of  the  perplexities  which  the  Scriptures  present 
to  many  conscientious  and  serious  persons ;  while  the 
obtrusion  of  these  perplexities  is  regarded  by  the  Or- 
thodox as  proof  that  they  cannot  be  proposed  by  any 
really  conscientious  or  serious  person,  but  indicates  of 
itself  a  depraved  heart.  The  Orthodox  in  general 
insist  that  faith  in  the  Bible,  and  love  for  it,  should  shut 
the  eyes  of  all  readers  to  the  misgivings  which  their 
theory  of  its  infallibility  creates,  and  should  reconcile 
them  to  encounter,  unexplained  and  unrelieved,  every 
embarrassing  suggestion.  It  is  claimed  that  the  same 
Christian  submission  which  reconciles  us  to  bear  bodily 
affliction  and  bereavement  from  God,  ought  to  make  us 
docile  and  tolerant  over  the  seeming  flaws  in  an  infalli- 
ble record.  We  are  asked  not  only  to  accept  the  Bible 
under  the  highest  character  which  we  can  intelligently 
assign  to  it,  but  as  burdened  with  claims  which  Or- 
thodoxy has  set  up  for  it ;  and  in  trying  to  uphold  these 
claims  Orthodoxy  does  not  deal  fairly  with  many  of  the 
difficulties  which,  not  the  Bible,  but  the  Orthodox  theory 
of  the  Bible,  presents.  Orthodoxy  gives  the  Bible  a 
weak  side  at  that  very  point  where  it  takes  up  the 
championship  of  the  Bible. 

We  will  now  frankly  state  the  position  which  Unita- 
rians have  in  general  affirmed,  which  they  have  main- 
tained against  many  opponents,  which  they  believe  those 
opponents  must  and  will  sooner  or  later  be  compelled 
to  accept,  and  which  has  in  fact  within  the  last  quar- 
ter of  a  century  received  either  an  outspoken  or  an 
implied  recognition  from  the  most  competent  biblical 
students  of  various  Christian  communions.     It  is,  that 


ASPERSIONS   ON  UNITARIAN   CRITICS.  239 

the  prevailing  popular  view  of  the  authority,  the  inspira- 
tion, and  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible,  has  been  super- 
stitiously  attached  to  it,  that  it  did  not  originate  in  the 
Bible,  is  not  claimed  by  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  and 
cannot  be  sustained  by  any  fair  dealing  with  them ; 
while  the  special  pleading,  the  subterfuges,  the  arti- 
fices, the  evasions,  the  forced  constructions,  and  the 
actual  violence  to  truth  and  fact,  needed  to  uphold  the 
popular  view,  are  the  very  scorn  of  many  intelligent  per- 
sons and  the  grief  of  many  pious  persons.  That  posi- 
tion stands  attested  by  overwhelming  truth,  and  he  who 
is  competent  to  pronounce  upon  it  must  be  something 
more  than  a  bold  man,  and  something  worse  than  a 
weak  man,  who  will  now  venture  to  question  it.  Is  it 
now  the  pride  of  reason,  the  rebellion  of  a  sinful  heart, 
the  entering  into  a  controversy  with  God,  which  has  in- 
stigated biblical  criticism,  and  led  Unitarians  to  adopt 
those  general  views  about  the  composition,  the  author- 
ity, and  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  that  are  identified 
with  their  position  in  this  controversy?  Let  us  try  to 
answer  this  question. 

We  regret  again  to  have  to  say,  that  an  unjust  asper- 
sion was  cast  upon  the  motives  of  those  who,  in  our 
doctrinal  discussions,  advanced  the  usual  and  now  very 
familiar  terms  of  biblical  criticism,  in  suggesting  the 
possibility  of  error,  of  mistranslations,  perversions,  and 
corruptions  in  the  text  of  Scripture.  It  is  to  be  granted 
that  such  suggestions  may  be  made  in  the  spirit  of  cavil- 
ling, of  hypercriticism,  of  contempt  and  poor  conceit  of 
mind.  But  they  may  also  be  prompted  by  the  highest 
conscientiousness,  by  the  most  intelligent  candor,  and  by 
a  most  reverent  and  sincere  intent.  The  instigating  mo- 
tive and  spirit  of  them  must  be  inferred  from  the  char- 
acters, the  professed  design,  and  the  language  of  those 
who  offer  them.  It  requires  but  a  little  discernment  to 
distinguish  between  a  reckless  and  a  captious  disputant, 


240  CONTROVERSY   OnTbIBLICAL   CRITICISM. 

and  an  honest,  humble  doubter  over  perplexities,  — 
though  both  may  ask  the  same  questions  and  make 
similar  assertions.  But  the  charge  quite  confidently 
and  indignantly  uttered  against  the  Unitarians  in  pages 
of  "  The  Panoplist  "  and  «  The  Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims  " 
was  in  substance  this :  "  You  are  flattering  the  pride 
of  human  reason,  you  are  judging  the  word  of  God  by 
your  own  prejudices,  and  making  your  own  taste  or  in- 
telligence or  conscience  the  measure  and  test  of  revealed 
truth  ;  you  wish  to  warp  and  twist  Scripture,  to  perplex 
the  unlearned,  and  to  unsettle  the  foundations  of  faith 
and  reverence,  leaving  us  all  to  the  mercy  of  private 
judgment  and  a  sort  of  freedom  which  Protestantism 
never  contemplated." 

In  answer  to  this  aspersion  upon  their  motives,  Uni- 
tarians replied,  in  general,  that  it  was  unjust  and  bigot- 
ed ;  that  in  the  issue  they  would  be  found  to  be  the 
wiser  friends  of  the  Bible ;  that  the  object  which  they 
had  in  view  in  proposing  some  discrimination  in  the 
contents  and  the  popular  estimate  of  that  book,  and  in 
arguing  for  certain  textual  constructions  and  emenda- 
tions, was  simple  truth,  to  meet  the  actual  emergencies 
and  exactions  of  the  case ;  that  the  Scriptures  were  ex- 
posed to  harm  and  to  abuse,  were  open  to  honest  criti- 
cism as  to  a  safeguard,  and  that  the  human  elements  in 
them  were  subject  to  examination  and  revision  by  the  hu- 
man faculties.  They  also  urged,  that,  whatever  was  the 
authority  of  the  original  inspiration,  unless  we  were  pre- 
pared to  claim  that  all  transcribers,  translators,  and 
printers  of  the  Bible,  as  well  as  the  collectors  who  first 
pronounced  upon  the  canonical  documents,  were  divinely 
watched  over,  restrained,  and  helped,  there  must  have 
been  risk  of  error  and  consequent  material  for  criticism. 
Whether  Unitarianism  or  Trinitarianism  would  gain  or 
lose  by  the  processes  proposed,  was  an  issue  entirely 
subordinated  to  the  Christian  scholar's  loyalty  to  his 
appropriate  work. 


UNITARIAN   VIEWS   OF   SCRIPTURE.  241 

Thus  the  whole  question  concerning  the  authority, 
the  inspiration,  and  the  interpretation  of  the  Bible  was 
fully  opened,  though  prejudiced  in  the  tone  of  its  dis- 
cussion by  this  unfair  imputation  of  motives.  In  con- 
ducting their  arguments,  founded  on  textual  criticism, 
Unitarians  suggested  the  following  and  similar  consid- 
erations :  —  That  some  books  and  some  portions  of  books 
in  the  Bible  are  of  doubtful  authority,  and  probably  spu- 
rious ;  that  the  collection  is  of  a  miscellaneous  character, 
of  unequal  value,  credit,  and  present  authority ;  that  sci- 
ence, history,  chronology,  geography,  and  even  morality 
and  piety,  can  propose  valid  objections  to  more  or  less  im- 
portant contents  of  the  Bible,  if  the  letter  is  insisted  upon 
and  a  plenary  inspiration  is  claimed  for  it ;  that  inspira- 
tion could  not  be  ascribed  equally  to  all  its  contents,  and 
was  not  needed  in  some  of  them,  while  the  nature  and 
measure  and  proof  of  inspiration  itself  were  all  unsettled 
and  difficult  of  determination  by  any  formula ;  that  the 
writers  used  Orientalisms  and  figures  of  speech,  exag- 
gerations and  metaphors,  which  would  mislead  us  if 
rigidly  interpreted  into  more  literal  forms  of  language  ; 
that  what  Christ  said  is  more  authoritative  than  any- 
thing that  comes  from  any  other  source ;  that  he  may 
have  conformed  in  language  to  views  and  conceptions 
then  prevailing  in  the  world,  without  always  authenti- 
cating such  views  and  conceptions  as  his  language  im- 
plied ;  that  possibly  his  own  words  had  sometimes  been 
misunderstood  or  misreported,  or  affected  by  transcrip- 
tion or  translation  ;  that  there  are  discrepancies,  even  in 
the  New  Testament,  which  cannot  fairly  be  reconciled 
into  a  perfect  consistency  with  the  entire  infallibility 
claimed  for  the  writers ;  that  the  strict  rules  of  logic 
were  not  always  observed  by  the  writers  in  their  rea- 
soning ;  that  they  were  liable  to  mistake  if  they  went 
out  of  the  range  within  which  their  inspiration  was  lim- 
ited ;  and  that  on  one  point  at  least  the  Apostles  were 
21 


242  •      REASON   AND    REVELATION. 

manifestly  in  error  in  expecting  the  end  of  the  world  in 
their  generation,  and  in  speaking  of  it  as  certain. 

When  the  controversy,  leaving  these  broad  fields,  was 
concentrated  upon  some  specific  issue,  a  dispute  was 
raised  as  to  the  proper  province  of  reason  in  dealing 
with  the  Bible  and  its  contents.  Unitarians  insisted 
upon  an  undefined,  but  still  a  real  and  legitimate  fac- 
ulty in  a  human  being,  not  to  judge  Divine  Truth,  but  to 
judge  upon  what  other  men  offered  to  it  as  Divine  Truth, 
—  upon  its  message  and  its  vehicle,  upon  its  consistency 
with  reason  and  with  the  elementary  constitution  of  that 
nature  which  God  had  given  and  which  God  addressed. 
Unitarians  accord  with  the  judicious  Hooker  in  a  belief 
in  "  the  primary  revelation  of  the  human  understanding." 
Holding  to  this  as,  though  a  vague  and  undetermined, 
still  a  vitally  essential  right,  some  Unitarians  have  been 
wont  to  express  themselves  very  strongly  to  this  effect : 
If  the  Bible  could  be  proved  to  teach  this  or  that  doctrine, 
professedly  drawn  from  it,  so  inconsistent  with  its  other 
contents,  with  the  attributes  of  God  and  the  nature  of 
man,  and  so  shocking  to  human  reason,  then  the  ne- 
cessary inference  would  follow,  that  the  Bible  is  not 
from  God.  Unitarians  were  replied  to  by  their  oppo- 
nents, that,  if  a  book  advancing  the  claims  of  the  Bi- 
ble were  found  to  contain  such  monstrous  doctrines,  its 
Divine  authority  would  of  course  be  perilled.  This 
being  yielded  as  an  hypothesis,  it  was  then  denied  that 
the  Bible  had  any  such  contents,  and  when,  notwith- 
standing, the  Orthodox  continued  to  press  upon  Unita- 
rians doctrines  as  from  the  Bible  which  to  the  latter  had 
that  character  and  aspect,  the  revulsion  of  heart,  mind, 
and  soul  against  them  was  not  allowed  to  discredit  the 
doctrines  or  the  Bible  which  was  supposed  to  teach 
them,  but  was  referred  to  the  pride  of  carnal  reason 
and  a  haughty  heart.  The  doctrines,  nevertheless,  came 
from  God,  and  were  good  doctrines,  and  the  Bible  was 


REASON   APPLIED   TO   THE   BIBLE.  243 

all  the  more  precious  for  teaching  them ;  and  until  a 
man  could  choke  them  down,  he  was  unmistakably  in 
a  hopeless  state  of  reprobation. 

When  the  discussion  reached  this  point,  it  was  a 
blessed  thing  for  both  parties  that  there  was  such  a 
door  of  relief  opened  as  that  of  biblical  criticism.  God 
be  thanked  for  the  understanding  he  has  given  to  man, 
as  well  as  for  the  inspiration  he  has  given  to  his  Word  ; 
for  the  faculty  to  interpret,  as  well  as  for  the  oracle  ;  for 
the  certain  expounder  of  its  uncertain  sounds.  The 
great  question  presents  itself,  What  doctrines  does  the 
Bible  teach  ?  So  that,  beside  all  the  broad  issues  relat- 
ing to  the  authenticity  and  authority  of  the  different 
books  of  Scripture,  there  came  in  for  discussion  a  large 
range  of  topics  connected  with  interpretation.  The  di- 
rection of  these  discussions  and  the  spirit  brought  to 
them  may  be  inferred  from  the  following  instance. 
There  appeared  in  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims  "  *  a 
very  censorious  review  of  Milman's  History  of  the  Jews, 
written  in  the  spirit  of  an  alarmist.  In  that  review  the 
liberal-minded  and  intelligent  author,  though,  as  a  dis- 
tinguished clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  he  be- 
longed then  as  now  to  a  nominally  Orthodox  commun- 
ion, was  severely  handled  for  venturing  to  make  some 
concessions  of  a  semi-rationalistic  character.  The  re- 
viewer expresses  his  own  opinion  in  this  sentence:  "We 
know  that,  of  all  impossible  vagaries  of  a  learned  fancy, 
that  of  making  the  Bible  a  book  which  infidels  will  be- 
lieve is  the  wildest."  This  remark  is  made  concerning 
the  efforts  of  the  critic,  in  allowing  for  the  Orientalisms 
of  the  record,  to  reduce  some  apparently  marvellous,  le- 
gendary, or  exaggerated  details  to  a  more  credible  self- 
consistency.  Suppose  now  we  invert  the  remark  of  the 
reviewer,   and  say  that,   Of  all  the  most  objectionable 

*  Vol.  III.  p.  487. 


244  ANTAGONISTIC   VIEWS   OF  THE   BIBLE. 

ways  of  viewing  and  treating  the  Bible,  that  is  the 
most  harmful  which  fosters  infidelity  and  burdens  a 
vigorous  and  effective  faith  in  its  substantial  truth  with 
a  slavish  bondage  to  the  letter  of  all  its  contents.  Is 
not  this  assertion  of  ours  as  true  as  that  of  the  reviewer? 
And  is  not  the  truth  in  it  as  worthy  of  practical  regard 
and  caution  from  the  defenders  of  the  Bible  ?  The  ad- 
vocates of  the  Bible  have  found  occasion  in  many  cases 
to  be  its  apologists.  They  ought  to  be  furnished  for  both 
these  offices,  as  were  the  great  ministers  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  the  centuries  after  the  Apostles.  But  it  is  a 
curious  fact,  that  many  divines  who  have  been  most 
ready  to  write  upon  the  evidences  of  Christianity  have 
been  the  least  tolerant  of  the  harder  tasks  of  the  biblical 
critic.  While  those  who  are  already  firm  and  assured 
in  their  Scriptural  faith  of  course  may  look  to  their  re- 
ligious teachers  for  instruction  founded  on  their  faith,  it 
would  seem  as  if  those  who  are  tried  by  doubts,  but  are 
anxious  to  believe  if  their  difficulties  can  be  removed, 
deserved  some  sympathy  from  the  friends  and  cham- 
pions of  revelation.  Some  of  our  divines,  however, 
seem  to  have  acted  on  the  principle,  that  the  harder 
they  made  the  terms  of  biblical  faith  to  the  sceptical, 
the  more  precious  those  terms  would  be  to  the  believer. 
On  the  same  page  of  the  same  review  just  quoted,  we 
read  the  following  sentence :  "  Let  the  defender  of  the 
inspiration  of  the  Bible  take  the  highest  ground ;  he  will 
find  it  easiest  to  maintain."  But  what  is  the  highest 
ground  ?  The  writer  evidently  means  by  the  expression 
to  recommend  the  boldest  assertion,  the  most  unquali- 
fied, unscrupulous,  and  dogmatic  assertion,  of  plenary  in- 
spiration. This,  however,  would  be  to  our  minds  the 
lowest  ground,  lowest  in  the  scale  of  reason,  truth,  value, 
and  evidence.  "Who  shall  be  judge  in  any  case  whether 
an  obstinate  and  rigid  adherence  to  an  unintelligent  and 
a  reckless  theory,  or  a  candid  concession  to    a  recon- 


THE    LETTER   AND   THE   SPIRIT   OF    SCRIPTURE.  245 

sidered  and  a  reconstructed  theory,  be  the  truest  ground  ? 
—  for  the  truest  will  be  the  highest.  An  issue  raised  by 
common  sense  concerning  hundreds  of  passages  in  Scrip- 
ture, asks  whether  they  are  to  be  interpreted  literally  or 
figuratively ;  and  if  figuratively,  how  we  are  to  choose, 
out  of  an  infinite  number  of  harder  prosaical  forms  of 
language,  a  cast  into  which  to  compress  the  poetic  figure. 
Thus,  twice  does  the  Bible  affirm  that  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments were  "  written  with  the  finger  of  God  "  on 
tables  of  stone.  (Exod.  xxxi.  18 ;  Deut.  ix.  10.)  If  we 
insist  upon  the  letter,  we  must  say  that  God  took  into 
his  hands  those  slabs  of  stone,  and  actually  engraved 
upon  them  with  his  own  finger  the  Ten  Command- 
ments. But  if  we  yield  the  literal  for  some  figurative 
interpretation,  we  have  abandoned  logic  with  the  letter, 
and  we  follow  our  fancies  as  they  rove  in  a  thousand 
directions  to  seek  the  proper  shaping  of  an  image  for 
expressing  God's  agency  in  acting  through  man  as  an 
engraver  or  scribe,  a  dictator  or  oracle.  How  vain,  then, 
is  the  attempt  to  trammel  such  ventures  as  those  of  Mil- 
man,  provided  they  are  reverential,  with  the  broken 
bonds  of  literalism !  Over  and  over  again  we  find  the 
Deity  represented  in  the  Old  Testament  as  rising  early 
in  the  morning  light,  as  if,  like  a  man  who  had  a  task,  he 
determined  to  start  apace  and  make  a  long  day  of  it. 
No  one  interprets  such  language  literally.  But  when  we 
abandon  the  letter,  the  alternative  is  not  to  insist  upon 
some  specific,  figurative  form,  but  to  launch  freely  into 
the  expanse  of  devout  and  reverent  imagery. 

Suppose  a  serious  reader  of  the  Bible,  with  a  burden 
on  his  mind,  comes  to  his  minister  with  this  question  : 
"  How  can  the  Bible  twice  repeat  the  assertion,  that 
'  David  was  a  man  after  God's  own  heart,  fulfilling  all 
his  will,'  (1  Sam.  xiii.  14,  Acts  xiii.  22,)  when  the 
same  Bible  presents  David  to  us  as  an  adulterer  and 
a  murderer,  and  tells  us  that  he  was  expressly  forbidden 
21* 


246  INSPIRATION   OF   THE   BIBLE. 

to  build  a  temple  for  God,  because  he  was  '  a  man  of 
blood '  ?  "  Doubtless  the  minister  in  the  age  of  our 
fathers  would  have  replied,  that  "  God  sanctified  all  his 
instruments,"  and  would  have  let  the  matter  drop  there. 
A  minister  of  our  own  time  would  be  likely  to  reply, 
that  the  English  words  "  a  man  after  God's  own  heart" 
do  not  convey  exactly  the  Hebraism  in  the  original ; 
which  means,  more  strictly  rendered,  a  man  of  Go$s 
choice  for  fulfilling  his  purpose  in  one  or  more  directions. 
The  relief  is  appreciable  and  sufficient.  But  is  not  this 
a  use  of  your  reason  for  removing  a  seeming  inconsist- 
ency in  the  record,  a  trial  of  your  own  skill  and  wisdom 
to  improve  upon  what  your  fathers  left  you  ?  It  surely 
is.  Suppose,  then,  you  try  the  same  intelligence  upon 
the  popular  notion  that  David's  fierce  imprecations  upon 
his  enemies  in  some  of  the  Psalms  come  from  inspira- 
tion of  God,  and  so  are  of  edifying  use  in  Christian 
churches  for  the  devotion  of  Christians  at  this  day.  Of 
the  nine  verses  in  that  exquisite  and  heart-moving  lyric, 
Psalm  cxxxvii.,  the  first  six  might  have  come  from  a 
soul  kindled  by  the  fire  of  the  divine  altar.  But  what 
shall  we  say  of  the  last  verse,  —  "  O  daughter  of  Babylon, 
happy  shall  he  be  that  taketh  and  dasheth  thy  little  ones 
against  the  stones"  ? 

We  can  give  but  a  few  paragraphs  to  that  element  of 
the  great  controversy  before  us  which  involves  the  sub- 
ject of  Inspiration,  though  a  volume  might  be  filled  by 
that  topic  alone.  All  clear,  distinguishing,  and  satisfac- 
tory views  on  this  topic  are  embarrassed  by  the  unset- 
tled and  undefined  senses  attached  by  different  persons 
to  Inspiration  when  ascribed  to  the  Bible.  The  most 
encouraging  reason  for  hoping  that  we  have  made  ap- 
proximation to  a  true  theory  of  Inspiration,  and  to  more 
accordance  of  opinion  and  belief  in  reference  to  it,  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  we  have  given  over  our  attempts 
at  a  rigid  definition  of  its  substance,  scope,  or  limitations. 


INSPIRATION  AND   TESTIMONY.  247 

And  yet,  till  we  have  something  like  such  a  definition, 
we  can  argue,  advocate,  and  object  to  but  vague  conclu- 
sions. Who  will  tell  us,  to  the  content  of  all,  what  is 
meant  by  Inspiration?  We  all  know  what  ive  mean  to 
mean  by  it.  We  all  have  a  clouded  sense  of  its  august, 
oracular  source,  its  exalted  authority,  and  its  intended 
uses,  as  abiding  in  a  writing  whose  words,  or  at  least 
whose  contents,  have  a  Divine  sanction.  But  what  rigid 
exposition  can  be  given  of  its  method,  its  operation,  its 
limits,  its  distinguishing  marks  and  tokens  ?  What  are 
the  securities  of  its  tenure  for  human  use  ?  Is  it  re- 
stricted to  the  communication  and  the  sanction  of  one 
class  of  truths,  namely,  religious  truths,  and  even,  by  a 
rigid  analysis,  to  that  class  of  religious  truths  which  we 
call  the  highest,  that  is,  the  spiritual  as  distinguished  from 
the  moral?  Does  the  inspiration  by  the  Divine  Mind  of 
a  human  mind,  as  a  channel  or  organ  for  the  communi- 
cation of  religious  truth,  affect  all  the  views  and  utter- 
ances of  that  mind,  and  make  all  its  judgments  and 
opinions  infallible  ?  Does  this  inspiration  intermingle 
with  the  knowledge  and  the  wisdom  derived  by  the  in- 
spired man  from  other  sources  ?  How  does  such  inspi- 
ration pass  from  the  mind  into  speech  or  writing,  using 
the  vocables  of  a  language  and  its  grammatical  forms, 
and  words  and  images  which  have  a  variety  of  significa- 
tions and  associations  ?  Does  this  inspiration  confine 
its  authority  to  the  actual  utterances  and  to  the  original 
record  made  by  the  subject  of  it,  or  is  it  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  admit  of  being  perpetuated  unimpaired  in  a  toler- 
ably faithful  translation  of  the  record  ? 

The  Apostles  affirmed,  on  an  occasion  when  evidence 
was  all  important,  that  two  sorts  of  it  were  offered  in 
the  cause  of  the  Gospel.  Thus,  "  WE  are  his  witnesses 
of  these  things;  and  so  is  also  the  HOLY  GHOST, 
whom  God  hath  given  to  them  that  obey  him."  (Acts 
v.  32.)     Here  they  evidently  distinguish  between  their 


248 


own  testimony  as  competent  witnesses  to  what  they  had 
seen,  heard,  and  known,  and  the  assurance  of  belief 
which  God  gave  by  inspiration  to  the  obedient.  St. 
Paul  often  makes  a  distinction  between  what  he  teaches 
as  a  man,  speaking  by  his  own  judgment  and  prompt- 
ing, and  what  he  teaches  through  the  Spirit  of  God. 
Thus  the  personal  Apostolic  testimony  is  made  to  be 
that  of  independent,  veritable  eyewitnesses,  who  had 
cognizance  of  facts  transpiring  within  their  own  obser- 
vation, and  of  intelligent  judges  of  truth  as  to  matters 
level  to  human  comprehension.  The  testimony  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  stands  in  some  sense  apart,  as  to  a  degree 
authenticating  what  the  Apostles  knew,  and  to  a  de- 
gree adding  to  their  knowledge,  their  power,  and  their 
ability  to  teach,  and  attaching  a  demonstration  to 
their  testimony.  Is  there  not  here  a  fair  distinction 
between  the  contents  of  the  Bible  as  embracing  alike 
what  is  taught,  from  human  sources,  of  history,  wisdom, 
moral  precept  and  doctrine,  and  what  came  by  imme- 
diate inspiration  from  God  ?  And  if  that  distinction  be 
allowed,  then  Inspiration  must  be  restricted  to  a  portion 
of  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  while  what  the  book  con- 
tains of  mere  human  teaching  or  writing  must  be  sub- 
ject to  the  conditions  attaching  to  all  the  operations  of 
the  human  intellect. 

The  old  Orthodox  theory  wavered  and  oscillated  be- 
tween a  verbal  inspiration  and  a  plenary  inspiration  of 
all  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  and  either  epithet  attached 
to  inspiration  has  been  the  warrant  with  the  Orthodox 
of  all  parties  for  speaking  of  the  Bible  as  "  the  Word  of 
God,"  which,  as  the  careful  reader  knows  very  well,  has 
no   Scripture  warrant  for  its  use.*     The  usual  form  of 

*  In  illustration  and  confirmation  of  an  assertion  made  on  a  preceding  page, 
to  the  effect  that  all  the  discriminating  suggestions  of  leading  Unitarian 
critics  had  recently  received  full  approval  from  scholars  in  other  commun- 
ions, who,  in  a  candid  dealing  with  the  Bible,  have  admitted  the  necessity  of 


"THE   WORD   OF   GOD."  249 

the  Orthodox  argument  is  as  follows :  Christ  authenti- 
cated the  Inspiration  of  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament 
by  referring  in  confidence  to  its  parts  and  contents,  by 
quoting  it  as  authority  in  all  cases,  and  by  ratifying  its 
prophecies  and  doctrines.  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord "  is 
the  warrant  of  Inspiration  for  the  whole  Old  Testament. 
The  Apostles  of  Christ  follow  in  this  respect  the  exam- 
ple of  their  Master,  while  the  Inspiration  which  he 
promised   to   them  assures   to  their  own  writings  the 

qualifying  popular  exaggerations  concerning  it,  Ave  adduce  the  following  very 
pointed  remarks.  They  are  extracted  from  a  volume  of  sermons,  entitled 
"Rational  Godliness,  after  the  Mind  of  Christ,  and  the  Written  Voices  of 
his  Church,"  by  Rowland  Williams,  B.  D.,  Fellow  of  King's  College,  Cam- 
bridge, England,  and  Professor  of  Hebrew  at  Lampeter.  "  Above  all,  let  no 
man  blunt  the  edge  of  his  conscience,  by  praising  such  things  as  the  craft  of 
Jacob,  or  the  blood-stained  treachery  of  Jael ;  nor  let  the  natural  metaphor 
by  which  men  called  a  sacred  record  '  the  Word  of  God '  ever  blind  us  to 
the  fact  that  no  text  has  been  found,  from  Genesis  to  Revelations,  in  which 
this  holy  name  is  made  a  synonyme  for  the  entire  volume  of  Scripture  ;  but 
rather,  the  spirit  is  often,  especially  in  the  New  Testament,  put  in  opposition 
to  the  letter;  and  the  living  word,  as  for  instance  it  was  spoken  by  the 
Apostles,  is  constantly  distinguished  from  the  written  tradition  of  the  days 
of  old.  Most  commonly,  in  the  New  Testament,  the  phrase  Word  of  God 
means  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  or  the  glad  tidings  of  the  Messiah  being  come. 
It  should  also  be  noticed,  that,  while  the  discoveries  of  modern  travellers  do 
so  far  confirm  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  as  to  show  their  historical 
character,  they  give  no  countenance  to  any  exaggerated  theory  of  omnis- 
cience or  dictation,  but  rather  contravene  any  dream  of  the  kind.  When 
men  quote  discoveries  as  confirmations  of  the  Bible,  they  should  consider  in 
what  sense  and  how  far  it  is  confirmed  by  them."  —  pp.  298,  299. 

Again :  "  But  above  all,  the  critical  interpretation  of  the  sacred  volume 
itself  is  a  study  for  which  our  generation  is,  by  various  acquirements,  emi- 
nently qualified.  Hence  we  have  learnt  that  neither  the  citations  usually 
made  in  our  theological  systems,  nor  even  those  adduced  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  the  New,  are  any  certain  guide  to  the  sense  of  the  original  text. 
The  entire  question  of  prophecy  requires  to  be  opened  again  from  its  very 
foundation.  Hence,  to  the  student,  who  is  compelled  to  dwell  on  such 
things,  comes  often  the  distress  of  glaring  contradictions  ;  and  with  some 
the  intellect  is  clouded,  while  the  faith  of  others  has  waxed  cold.  If  the 
secret  religious  history  of  the  last  twenty  years  could  be  written,  (even  set- 
ting aside  every  instance  of  apostasy  through  waywardness  of  mind,  or 
through  sensuality  of  life,)  there  would  remain  a  page  over  which  angels 
might  weep.    So  long,  indeed,  as  such  difficulties  are  thought  absolutely  to 


250  ORTHODOX  VIEW   OF  INSPIRATION. 

same  Divine  sanction  which  they  ascribe  to  the  elder 
Scriptures.  The  warning,  at  the  close  of  the  last  book 
of  the  Bible,  against  taking  from  or  adding  to  it,  is 
made  by  the  Orthodox  theory  virtually  to  cover  and  to 
guard  the  whole  volume,  and  to  make  it  literally  the 
Word  of  God.* 

The  Unitarian  argues  thus,  in  general  terms.  The 
contents  of  the  Bible  were  not  gathered  into  a  volume 
by  either  of  the  writers  of  it,  but  by  men  unknown  to 

militate  against  Christianity,  the  strong  necessity  which  the  best  men  feel  for 
Christian  sentiment  will  induce  them  to  keep  the  whole  subject  in  abeyance. 
Yet  surely  the  time  must  come  when  God  will  mercifully  bring  our  spirit 
into  harmony  with  our  understanding.  He  who  dwells  in  light  eternal  does 
not  promote  his  kingdom  by  darkness  ;  and  he  whose  name  is  Faithful  and 
True  is  not  served  by  falsehood.  If  knowledge  has  wounded  us,  the  same 
spear  must  heal  our  wound. 

"  Nor  can  I  close  without  humbly  asking  the  grave,  the  reverend,  and  the 
learned,  whether  all  this  subject  does  not  call  for  greater  seriousness,  tender- 
ness, and  frankness.  Who  would  not  be  serious  on  observing  how  many 
men's  hope  of  heaven  is  bound  up  with  belief  in  the  infallibility  of  a  book, 
which,  every  day  convinces  us,  expresses,  as  regards  things  of  earth,  the 
thoughts  of  fallible  men  ?  Or  who  is  so  blind  as  to  think  that  the  cause 
of  eternal  truth  should  be  defended  by  sophistries  of  which  a  special  pleader 
would  be  ashamed  ?  One  would  make  a  large  allowance  for  the  conscien- 
tious anxiety  of  those  eminent  persons  whose  position  makes  them  responsi- 
ble as  bulwarks  of  the  Faith ;  and  who  are  ever  dreading  the  consequences 
to  which  the  first  outlet  of  the  waters  of  freedom  may  tend.  But  may  God 
in  his  mercy  teach  them  that  nothing  can  be  so  dangerous  as  to  build  on  a 
false  foundation."  —pp.  306  -  308. 

*  The  same  Episcopal  divine  from  whom  we  have  just  quoted  so  largely 
thus  offsets  the  common  Orthodox  notion  that  the  Saviour  and  his  Apostles 
authenticated  and  indorsed  the  whole  Old  Testament :  "  Now  all  these 
writers  of  the  New  Testament  appear  partly  as  antagonists  of  the  Old,  and 
partly  as  witnesses  who  confirm  it.  Partly  they  are  antagonists,  for  even 
the  doctrines  of  Christ  find  fault  with  much  that  had  been  spoken  of  old. 
He  appeals  from  the  law  of  Moses  about  marriage  to  the  purer  instinct  of 
the  heart,  as  that  which  had  been  from  the  beginning ;  he  refuses  to  confirm 
the  law  of  retaliation ;  and  both  he  and  his  Apostles,  especially  St.  Paul, 
turn  men's  thoughts  from  the  tradition  of  the  wisdom  of  old  time,  which  was 
principally  enshrined  in  the  Bible,  to  that  life  of  the  soul  which  comes  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  to  the  ever-expanding  law  which  is  both  written  in  the 
heart,  and  Avhich  accumulates  enactment  from  experience."  —  Kational  God- 
liness, p.  300. 


UNITARIAN   VIEW   OF   INSPIRATION.  251 

us.  We  have  no  reason  for  believing  that  a  protecting 
and  guiding  inspiration  presided  over  this  collection  or 
selection  of  writings,  and  we  are  wholly  ignorant  as  to 
the  degree  of  care,  or  the  terms  and  means  for  authenti- 
cating its  contents,  employed  in  the  work.  Some  apoc- 
ryphal or  disputed  books  were  excluded  from  either 
Testament,  and  some  of  the  books  admitted  into  the 
New  Testament  have  from  the  first  been  admitted  to  be 
of  doubtful  authority ;  not  so  much  on  the  score  of  their 
contents,  as  because  they  lacked  the  evidence  necessary 
for  authenticating  them.  The  Old  Testament  bears  on 
its  face  the  appearance  of  including  all  the  Jewish  liter- 
ature extant  at  the  time  of  its  compilation,  and  is  there- 
fore of  a  very  miscellaneous  character,  while  it  mentions 
and  quotes  from  other  Jewish  Scriptures  which  seem  to 
have  been  lost.  We  know  not  the  authors  of  a  large 
number  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
writers  do  not  all  of  them  by  any  means  claim  to  have 
had  inspiration.  Some  of  the  books  relate  simply  and 
purely  to  matters  of  history,  having  no  concern  with 
doctrine  and  scarcely  any  relation  to  religion.  In  writ- 
ing them  honesty  would  be  the  best  and  the  only  neces- 
sary sort  of  inspiration.  A  competent  knowledge  of 
facts  and  a  power  to  relate  them  would  be  the  full 
qualification  of  the  writers  of  a  large  portion  of  them. 
There  are  also  manifest  errors  and  perplexities,  incon- 
sistencies and  discrepancies,  found  in  a  close  and  careful 
study  of  the  records,  which  utterly  confound  one  who 
seeks  to  refer  them  all  to  inspiration  from  God. 

Still  Unitarians,  so  far  from  denying,  have  always 
affirmed  and  insisted  upon  their  belief  in  an  inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures.  They  have  never  given  a  rigid  dog- 
matical definition  of  their  idea  or  their  belief  on  this 
point,  because  the  very  conditions  of  the  case  prevent 
their  doing  so.  Again  do  we  have  to  admit  vagueness 
and  indefiniteness  into  our  creed,  rather  than  purchase  a 


252  THEORIES   OF  THE   BIBLE. 

rigid  formula  at  the  expense  of  truth,  —  a  formula  taken 
from  human  hands,  under  the  false  guise  of  a  Divine 
oracle.  Our  aim  shall  now  be  to  illustrate  this  position, 
—  that  Unitarianism  forms  its  view  of  the  inspiration, 
the  authority,  and  the  value  to  be  ascribed  to  the  Bible, 
under  a  recognition  of  the  allowances  and  limitations 
which  must  be  made  in  qualification  of  the  claim  for 
its  Divine  origin  and  infallibility  that  has  been  popularly 
advanced  for  it;  while  Orthodoxy  nominally  clings  to 
and  insists  upon  an  unqualified  theory  of  the  Divine 
origin  and  infallibility  of  all  the  contents  of  the  sacred 
volume,  and  then  by  actual  compulsion  yields  certain 
concessions  more  or  less  invalidating  its  theory.  The 
actual  issue,  then,  between  the  able  biblical  critics  on 
either  side  of  this  controversy  is,  as  to  whether  it  be 
wiser  and  better,  more  honest  and  more  candid,  to  make 
these  necessary  concessions  first  or  last ;  to  advance  one 
theory  in  view  of  the  facts  that  must  be  recognized, 
or  to  advance  another  theory  in  spite  of  those  facts. 
Sooner  or  later  those  facts  which  compel  us  to  qualify 
the  popular  view  of  the  Bible  must  be  confronted.  Do 
we  not  speak  a  truth,  of  which  the  Christian  scholars  of 
our  day  have  met  much  painful  and  mortifying  evidence, 
when  we  affirm  that  the  concessions  compulsorily  drawn 
out  in  the  course  of  the  arguments  proposed  by  many 
Orthodox  divines  in  support  of  the  old  view  of  the  in- 
spiration and  the  infallibility  of  the  whole  Bible,  are 
made  most  grudgingly,  awkwardly,  timidly,  and  in  some 
cases  are  ingeniously  smothered  over  in  evasive,  uncan- 
did,  and  irrelevant  equivocation. 

We  have  a  task,  in  many  respects  an  unwelcome  one, 
before  us,  but  we  must  perform  it  as  faithfully  as  we 
can.  The  course  of  our  argument  compels  us  to  present 
some  specimens  from  each  of  the  various  materials  of 
embarrassment  with  which  an  honest  defender  of  the 
Bible  must  in  our  day  reconcile  his  view  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. 


DR.   ARNOLD   ON  DIFFICULTIES   IN   SCRIPTURE.         253 

Protestants  have  in  one  respect  at  least  been  faithful 
to  the  high  liberty  and  to  the  solemn  obligation  which 
they  asserted  for  themselves,  the  right  and  the  duty  of 
studying  the  Scriptures  with  the  freest  and  the  most 
scrutinizing  faculties  God  has  given  them.  Commen- 
taries, expositions,  and  critical  helps  without  number 
have  been  provided.  The  Bible  has  had  a  million 
microscopes  of  the  intensest  power  turned  upon  it. 
"  Reference  Bibles,"  with  their  curious  apparatus,  have 
reduced  the  theory  of  interpreting  Scripture  by  Scrip- 
ture into  a  literally  practical  work  for  thousands  of 
readers.  Now  let  the  excellent  Dr.  Arnold  state  to  us 
a  plain  truth  in  his  moderate  and  guarded  way.  He 
says :  "  It  is  very  true  that  our  position  with  respect 
to  the  Scriptures  is  not  in  all  points  the  same  as  our 
fathers'.  For  sixteen  hundred  years  nearly,  while  physi- 
cal science,  and  history,  and  chronology,  and  criticism 
were  all  in  a  state  of  torpor,  the  questions  which  now 
present  themselves  to  our  minds  could  not  from  the 
nature  of  the  case  arise.  When  they  did  arise,  they 
came  forward  into  notice  gradually :  first,  the  discoveries 
in  astronomy  excited  uneasiness ;  then,  as  men  began  to 
read  more  critically,  differences  in  the  several  Scripture 
narratives  of  the  same  thing  awakened  attention  ;  more 
lately,  the  greater  knowledge  which  has  been  gained  of 
history,  and  of  language,  and  in  all  respects  the  more 
careful  inquiry  to  which  all  ancient  records  have  been 
submitted,  have  brought  other  difficulties  to  light,  and 
some  sort  of  answer  must  be  given  to  them."  * 

Dr.  Newman,  the  Puseyite  champion  of  Romanism, 
in  his  argument  in  support  of  a  priesthood,  an  extra- 
scriptural  church  authority,  and  the  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation,  illustrates  his  position  that  people  must  be- 

*  Dr.  Arnold's  Christian  Life ;  its  Course,  its  Hinderances,  and  its  Helps. 
Notes,  p.  485. 

22 


254  PERPLEXITIES   OF   SCRIPTURE. 

lieve  in  spite  of  the  difficulties  and  the  seeming  unrea- 
sonableness of  some  tenets,  by  alleging  the  perplexities 
of  Scripture.  Dr.  Arnold  censures  him,  because,  "  with 
great  ingenuity,  but  with  a  recklessness  of  consequences, 
or  an  ignorance  of  mankind  truly  astonishing,  he  brought 
forward  all  the  difficulties  and  differences  which  can  be 
found  in  the  Scripture  narratives,  and  displayed  them  in 
their  most  glaring  form."  *  Dr.  Arnold  says  for  him- 
self: "Feeling  what  the  Scriptures  are,  I  would  not 
give  unnecessary  pain  to  any  one  by  an  enumeration  of 
those  points  in  which  the  literal  historical  statement  of 
an  inspired  writer  has  been  vainly  defended."  f  We 
think  this  excellent  man  was  greatly  mistaken  in  the 
opinion  which  he  afterwards  utters  as  to  a  general 
unconsciousness  or  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  read- 
ers of  the  Bible  of  the  difficulties  presented  by  it  when 
tried  by  the  popular  theory;  but  we  must  commend 
his  earnest  plea,  "that,  if  ever  these  difficulties  are 
brought  forward,  let  us  not  try  to  put  them  aside  un- 
fairly." 

The  difficulties  to  which  we  shall  make  a  brief  refer- 
ence, as  specimens  of  various  classes  of  perplexities  and 
misgivings,  are  such  only  and  entirely  in  view  of  the 
popular  notion  of  the  infallibility  and  the  homogeneity 
of  all  the  miscellaneous  contents  of  the  Bible.  In  view 
of  what  we  regard  as  a  more  just  and  an  equally  edify- 
ing theory  of  the  Bible,  they  are  trivial  and  harmless. 

When,  under  the  best  restraints  of  reverence,  intelli- 
gence, and  a  proper  self-distrust,  we  apply  the  tests  of 
criticism  to  the  various  contents  of  the  Bible,  we  find 
many  tokens  of  human  fallibility,  either  in  the  original 
writers,  or  at  least  in  the  records  which  have  come  to  us 
in  their  present  form.  It  is  a  relief  to  us  to  find,  as  Dr.  Ar- 
nold also  says  he  "  must  acknowledge,  that  the  scriptural 

*  Christian  Life,  &c,  p.  480.  t  Ibid.,  p.  491. 


SCIENTIFIC   CRITICISM   ON   GENESIS.  255 

narratives  do  not  claim  inspiration  for  themselves,"*  and 
though,  with  him,  we  believe  in  inspiration  in  the  Scrip- 
tures on  other  grounds,  it  is  a  comfort  to  us  to  be  free 
to  define  it  to  our  own  minds.  As  but  few  of  the  books 
claim  to  have  been  composed  by  those  to  whom  they 
are  ascribed,  we  are  left  in  doubt  as  to  the  source  of  the 
whole  or  of  parts  of  some  of  them.  Names  are  assigned 
to  some  places  which  were  not  attached  to  those  places 
till  after  the  death  of  the  reputed  writers.  In  one  of 
the  books  ascribed  to  Moses  there  is  a  compliment 
bestowed  on  him  as  the  meekest  of  men,  and  an  ac- 
count of  his  death,  indicating  certainly  some  editorial 
work,  we  know  not  by  whom.  Admitting  the  inspiration 
of  Moses,  would  it  necessarily  follow  that  his  editor 
and  biographer  was  inspired?  Besides  the  multitude 
of  historical  perplexities  presented  by  the  Scriptures, 
they  are  embarrassed  by  much  of  apparent  conflict  in 
their  statements  with  matters  of  positive  science  and 
chronology.  Whoever  maintains  the  "plenary  inspira- 
tion" of  the  Scriptures,  of  course  commits  himself  to 
uphold  the  perfect  accuracy  of  the  writers  in  every 
statement  which  they  have  made,  alike  in  their  inci- 
dental allusions  and  by-the-way  remarks,  and  in  their 
most  direct  and  emphatic  announcements.  Even  if 
they  were  not  inspired  to  write  on  scientific  matters, 
still,  if  they  were  restrained  or  aided  by  a  Divine  over-' 
sight  while  holding  their  pens,  they  could  have  written 
nothing  but  truth.  Now,  what  heaps  of  volumes  have 
been  composed  in  attempts  to  frown  down  the  demon- 
strative sciences  whenever  they  seemed  to  threaten  a  text 
in  Genesis !  How  much  futile  ingenuity,  how  much 
trivial  special  pleading,  how  much  absurd  theorizing, 
have  been  exercised  on  such  matters  as  "  The  Six  Days 
of  Creation,"  "  The  Unity  of  the  Human  Race,"  «  The 

*  Christian  Life,  &c,  p.  487. 


256  DEVELOPMENT    OF   BIBLICAL   CRITICISM. 

Flood,"  the  capacity  of  "The  Ark,"  "The  Rainbow," 
"  The  Ages  of  the  Patriarchs,"  "  The  Plagues  of  Egypt," 
«  The  Red  Sea,"  «  Manna,"  and  "Joshua  and  the  Sun." 
How  was  astronomy  first  resisted  as  an  impious  science! 
When  the  history  of  geological  science  shall  come  to  be 
written,  with  special  reference  to  the  alarms  and  oppro- 
briums through  which  Buckland  and  J.  P.  Smith  and 
Mantel  and  Lyell  led  on  the  line  of  the  earth's  reve- 
lations of  its  own  history,  will  not  Protestantism  be  re- 
garded as  having  fully  matched  the  old  story  of  Galileo 
and  his  Roman  inquisitors  ?  Not  the  least  ludicrous 
among  the  incidents  to  be  rehearsed  in  that  history 
will  be  the  grateful  avidity  with  which  a  large  number 
of  the  "  Evangelical "  party  threw  themselves  and  their 
Bibles  into  the  arms  of  Hugh  Miller. 

When  the  Bible  presents  us  with  duplicate  narra- 
tives, or  contemporaneous  records  covering  the  same 
time,  events,  and  characters,  of  course  we  are  urged  to 
a  very  searching  criticism  of  them.  The  Books  of 
Samuel,  of  Kings,  and  Chronicles  are  of  this  charac- 
ter; and  when  their  contents  are  brought  into  com- 
parison, they  are  often  found  in  strange  conflict  in 
their  statements.  Matters  which  have  not  the  slight- 
est importance,  and  no  sort  of  connection  with  the 
realities  or  the  sanctions  of  our  faith,  in  themselves 
considered,  are  thus  exalted  into  alarms  and  dangers, 
if  the  standard  of  inspiration  and  infallibility  is  set  for 
all  the  promiscuous  contents  of  the  Bible.  These  books 
present  us  with  some  specimens  of  a  most  perplexing 
nature,  under  one  of  the  chief  class  of  embarrassments 
attaching  to  the  narratives  of  the  Old  Testament, — 
the  matter  of  numbers,  in  stating  population,  military 
forces,  and  amounts  of  money.  It  is  a  comfort  to  con- 
fess, in  our  confusion  and  bewilderment,  that  "  we  are 
very  ignorant  about  the  Hebrew  system  of  notation," 
and  that  old  records  that  have  been  frequently  copied 


KINGS   AND    CHRONICLES   COMPARED.  257 

by  the  pen  are  especially  liable  to  error  in  the  mat- 
ter of  figures  and  numbers.  When,  by  command  of 
David,  Joab  numbered  the  forces,  according  to  2  Sam. 
xxiv.  9,  Israel  had  800,000  soldiers,  and  Judah  had 
500,000 ;  but  according  to  1  Chron.  xxi.  5,  Israel  had 
1,100,000  and  Judah  470,000.  In  2  Kings  viii.  26, 
Ahaziah,  son  of  Jehoram,  was  twenty-two  years  old 
when  he  began  to  reign ;  but  in  2  Chron.  xxii.  2,  he  is 
said  to  have  been  forty-two  years  old.  This  latter  ac- 
count makes  him  to  have  been  two  years  older  than  his 
own  father,  who  died  just  before  the  son's  accession, 
aged  forty  (2  Chron.  xxi.  20).  In  1  Kings  xv.  32,  it  is 
said,  "there  was  war  between  Asa  and  Baasha  all  their 
days" ;  but  in  2  Chron.  xiv.  1,  it  is  said,  Asa  had  peace 
in  his  land  ten  years.  In  2  Chron.  xiv.  3,  it  is  said 
that  Asa  took  away  "  the  high  places  "  of  idolatry ;  but 
in  the  next  chapter,  verse  17,  it  is  said,  "the  high 
places  were  not  taken  away."  In  view  of  these  and 
similar  phenomena,  of  which  he  makes  a  most  candid 
recognition,  Professor  Stuart  very  truly  says,  the  critic 
"  has  a  somewhat  formidable  task  before  him ;  especially 
if  he  adopts  the  theory  of  plenary  verbal  inspiration."  * 
The  Professor  also  remarks,  very  naively,  in  reference  to 
a  matter  already  noticed,  that  u  the  statement  of  num- 
bers occasionally  wears  the  air  of  something  very  ex- 
traordinary."! It  seems  hardly  credible  that  the  wealth 
collected  by  David  for  the  temple  should  have  been 
what  is  stated  in  1  Chron.  xxii.  14,  calculated  by  Dr. 
Arbuthnot,  in  his  Table  of  Ancient  Currency,  to  amount 
to  £  800,000,000.  One,  too,  may  be  allowed  to  hope 
that  there  is  some  error  in  the  statement,  that  a  man 
so  wise  as  Solomon  should  have  burdened  himself 
with  a  thousand  women. 

*  Stuart's  Critical  History  and  Defence  of  the  Old  Testament  Canon, 
p.  161. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  158. 

22* 


258  INSPIRATION  IN  THE   BOOK   OF  JOB. 

Similar  discrepancies,  found  by  comparing  two  or 
more  representations  of  the  same  events,  incidents,  and 
discourses,  are  now  among  the  familiar  themes  of  dis- 
cussion in  the  criticism  of  the  Gospels.  The  advocate 
who  attempts  to  reconcile  those  phenomena  with  the 
theory  of  Infallibility  in  the  present  form  of  those  rec- 
ords, must  task  his  ingenuity  at  the  expense  of  his 
candor. 

Take,  next,  the  phenomena  presented  by  the  Book  of 
Job.  The  interlocutors  in  the  discussions  contained  in 
that  marvellously  rich  and  precious  Scripture  debate 
the  great  mystery  of  the  purpose  of  evil,  its  allowance 
and  tolerance  by  God,  and  its  seemingly  unequal,  un- 
just, deferred,  and  immoderate  visitations  upon  different 
human  beings.  The  speakers  approach  and  recede  from 
the  mystery  ;  they  clutch  at  it,  and  then  quail  before  it; 
they  offer  all  sorts  of  notions  about  it ;  and  we  find  in 
the  book  arguments  affirmed  and  answered,  objections 
raised  and  set  aside,  and  a  great  variety  of  discordant 
views  intimated  or  insisted  upon.  Statements  are  made 
in  single  sentences  which  are  false,  wicked,  irreverent, 
almost  impious,  and  are  charged  to  the  different  speak- 
ers whom  Job  answers,  while  the  Almighty  himself  is 
represented  as  answering  Job.  Now,  wherein  lies  the 
inspiration  and  the  infallibility  of  that  book  ?  In  all  its 
sentiments,  or  in  a  part  of  them  ?  and  in  what  part  ? 
Does  the  book  contain  a  veritable  narrative  of  real  life, 
or  is  it  an  artificial  composition,  written  to  convey  a 
great  lesson  ?  and  how  will  this  contingency  affect  its  be- 
ing referred  to  a  Divine  Source  ?  Mark,  now,  how  Pro- 
fessor Stuart  utters  himself  on  the  main  point :  —  "  Not  a 
few  persons  appeal  to  the  speeches  of  Job,  Eliphaz,  Bil- 
dad,  Zophar,  and  Elihu  in  support  of  doctrinal  proposi- 
tions ;  just  as  if  these  angry  disputants,  who  contradict 
each  other,  and  most  of  whom  God  himself  has  declared 
to  be  in  the  wrong   (xlii.  7-9),  were  inspired  when  they 


WAS   JOB   A   SCEPTIC   OR  A  PROPHET?  259 

disputed !  The  man  who  wrote  the  book,  and  gave  an 
account  of  this  dispute,  might  be  —  I  believe  he  was — 
inspired;  he  had  a  great  moral  purpose  in  view;  but 
how  Job  is  to  be  appealed  to  for  a  sample  of  doctrine, 
who  curses  the  day  of  his  birth,  and  says  many  things 
under  great  excitement,  I  am  not  able  to  understand. 
Are  we  indeed  to  follow  him  in  the  sentiment  of  chap, 
xiv.  7,  10,  12  ?  And  are  we  to  appeal  to  his  angry 
friends,  who  are  in  the  wrong  as  to  the  main  point  in 
question,  for  confirmation  of  a  doctrinal  sentiment  of  the 
Gospel  ?  The  practical  amount  of  the  matter  is,  that 
those  who  refer  in  such  a  way  to  this  book  merely  se- 
lect what  they  like,  and  leave  the  rest.  They  complain, 
however,  in  other  cases,  of  doings  like  to  this.  They 
accuse  the  Unitarians  and  the  Rationalists  of  very  unfair 
and  unscriptural  practices,  in  so  doing  with  other  parts 
of  the  Bible."  *  Is  not  that  frank  speech  from  an  Ando- 
ver  Professor  ?  We  apprehend  that,  if  some  preachers 
who  have  discoursed  upon  several  texts  from  Job  were 
to  look  sharply  into  the  connection  of  those  texts,  they 
would  find  that  they  had  taken  some  sentences  as  Divine 
oracles,  uttered  by  inspiration  from  God,  which  are  in 
fact  false  and  wicked  opinions  expressed  by  men. 

We  have  noted  the  reference  made  by  Professor  Stu- 
art to  a  passage  indicating  Job's  scepticism  or  unbe- 
lief in  a  future  state.  Yet  it  is  from  Job's  lips  that  the 
beautiful  sentences  in  the  Liturgical  Burial  Service  are 
taken,  "  For  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,"  &c.  (xix. 
25  -  27.)  This  passage  has  been  read  millions  of  times 
over  human  graves,  under  the  impression  entertained 
by  Christian  ministers,  or  at  least  encouraged  by  them 
for  the  comfort  of  mourners,  that  Job  knew  and  prophe- 
sied of  the  coming  of  Christ,  and  also  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body.     Professor  Stuart  says   of  the   text, 

*  Critical  History,  &c,  p.  144. 


260  TENACITY  OF  PREJUDICE  ON  THE   BIBLE. 

"  It  is  constantly  quoted  to  show  the  Patriarch's  knowl- 
edge of  a  Messiah  to  come,  and  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection,  notwithstanding  the  context,  and  the  tenor 
of  the  whole  book,  are  totally  of  a  different  nature."  * 
Our  readers  are,  doubtless,  for  the  most  part,  well 
aware  that  a  fair  and  just  interpretation  of  the  pas- 
sage finds  in  it  no  such  references ;  but  that  its  mean- 
ing conveys  the  expression  of  Job's  confidence  that,  be- 
fore his  diseased  body  should  be  brought  to  death,  his 
vindicator,  God,  would  make  his  innocence  evident  to 
living  men  on  the  earth,  —  a  confidence  which  the  event 
verified.  The  Presbyterian  Dr,  Barnes,  in  his  Notes  on 
Job,  confesses  to  us  with  what  a  painful  violence  to 
fond  associations,  connected  with  the  old  version,  he 
was  forced  to  admit  this  true  interpretation  of  the  pas- 
sage. Yet  the  reader  who  knows  the  superstitious  as 
well  as  fond  tenacity  of  prejudices  linked  with  re- 
ligious feeling,  knows  very  well  that  a  demonstration 
of  an  error  in  such  a  passage  as  this  in  our  English 
Bibles  would  not  persuade  to  its  correction.  The  pas- 
sage is  a  good  one  for  use  in  an  attempt  to  enlighten 
such  persons  —  and  there  are  many  of  them  —  as  cling, 
with  a  puerile  and  sickly  fancy,  to  all  the  weak  sup- 
ports which  use  or  association  has  led  them  to  regard 
as  essential  or  helpful  to  their  faith.  They  wish  to  be- 
lieve that  God  dictated  through  Job  the  words  on  which 
we  are  remarking,  as  found  in  our  English  Bible.  Sup- 
pose, however,  they  yield  to  the  common-sense  sugges- 
tion, that  the  translator  happened  to  give  to  the  pas- 
sage a  construction  which  it  will  not  fairly  admit ;  will 
their  faith  in  truth  be  shaken  by  the  removal  of  error  ? 
Still,  let  an  appeal  be  made  to  "  the  Christian  public," 
to  have  that  passage  correctly  rendered,  and  what  a 
storm  would  ensue  in  "  the  religious  journals  " ! 

*  Critical  History,  &c,  p.  409. 


DIFFICULTIES  IN   SCRIPTURE.  261 

A  remark  similar  to  that  just  made,  in  reference  to 
the  false  and  irreverent  sentiments  advanced  in  some 
sentences  of  the  Book  of  Job,  is  equally  pertinent  —  is 
indeed  more  emphatically  applicable  —  to  the  Book  of 
Ecclesiastes.  Taking  that  composition  as  an  essay  on 
human  life,  in  which  the  writer  tells  us  how  he  was  led 
on  through  sensuality  and  scepticism,  with  their  tempo- 
rary lures  and  mottoes  and  maxims,  to  the  conclusion 
of  all  wisdom  in  the  fear  of  God,  we  find  the  work  to  be 
of  exalted  value  to  us,  a  treasure  and  a  guide.  But  in 
what  sense  are  we  to  attribute  inspiration  to  it?  Are  its 
sentiments  inspired,  or  only  its  moral  ?  Or  shall  we 
say,  as  Professor  Stuart  says  of  Job,  that  "  the  man  who 
wrote  it  was  inspired,"  allowing  the  inference  that  ivhat 
he  ivrote  is  not  inspired,  —  that  not  all  which  his  pen 
put  down  partakes  of  his  inspiration  ?  When  preachers 
take  texts  from  that  strange  compound  of  Epicureanism 
and  piety,  what  must  they  do  about  the  old  theory  of 
an  infallible  inspiration  ? 

In  the  Prophecy  of  Jeremiah,  xxii.  24,  28-30,  the 
Prophet  says  he  was  solemnly  moved  by  God  to  utter 
a  most  fearful  malediction  on  Jechoniah ;  he  was  to 
be  cursed  as  childless,  with  no  posterity  to  sit  upon 
his  throne.  What  are  we  to  say,  then,  when,  on  turn- 
ing to  the  genealogy  of  the  Saviour,  in  Matthew  i. 
12,  we  find  this  "  childless  "  man  appearing  as  a  par- 
ent, and  holding  his  place  in  the  ancestral  lineage  of 
the  Messiah  ?  What  meaning  or  limitation  has  an 
infallible  inspiration  here  ?  Again,  the  Book  of  Dan- 
iel, which  reads  as  a  wondrous  prophecy  of  future 
events,  is,  with  scarcely  a  shadow  of  doubt,  a  history 
of  events  that  had  already  transpired  cast  into  the  form 
of  predictions.  If  there  is  inspiration  here,  it  would 
therefore  seem  to  be  of  the  memory.  The  Book  of 
Esther,  making  no  mention  of  God  or  of  divine  doc- 
trine, seems  to  have  been  composed  simply  to  account 


262      KELATION   OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  TO   THE   OLD. 

for  the  introduction  of  a  fourth  Jewish  feast,  —  that  of 
Purim.  Professor  Stuart  makes  a  very  impressive 
statement  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  receiving 
some  of  the  contents  of  this  book  even  as  veritable 
history,  still  more  as  inspired  narrative.  Yet  through 
force  of  considerations  satisfactory  to  his  own  mind, 
he  concludes  that  we  ought  to  regard  it  as  in  some 
sense  inspired.  The  Song  of  Solomon  is  an  utter 
scandal  to  many  readers,  and  their  offence  at  it  is  ag- 
gravated rather  than  relieved  by  the  hard  and  far-fetched 
device  of  some  fanciful  commentators,  who,  without  a 
shadow  of  reason,  profess  to  find  in  it  a  fond  portrayal 
of  the  love  of  Christ  for  his  Church,  under  the  guise 
of  an  amorous  Jewish  ditty.  Professor  Stuart's  lucu- 
brations on  this  matter  are  among  the  most  extraordi- 
nary utterances  which  the  book  has  ever  called  forth ; 
their  squeamishness  runs  into  pruriency.  The  unblush- 
ing presence  of  that  "  Song  of  Songs  "  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament is  enough  to  make  all  theologians  and  divines  — 
to  say  nothing  of  unlearned  Christians — grateful  for 
each  announcement  and  repetition  of  the  suggestion, 
that  the  Old  Testament  probably  embraced  all  the  ex- 
tant Hebrew  literature. 

Still  another  class  of  perplexities  present  themselves 
to  our  minds  when,  in  view  of  the  theory  of  an  in- 
fallible inspiration,  we  attempt  to  form  a  satisfactory 
idea  about  the  relation  between  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New,  as  regards  quotations  from  the  former  in 
the  latter,  represented  as  the  fulfilment  of  prophecies. 
The  allowance  of  the  principle,  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  often  quote  from  the  Old,  and  use  the 
phrase  "  it  was  fulfilled "  merely  for  illustration  and  by 
accommodation^  without  implying  prophecy,  is  an  ade- 
quate solution  of  all  the  difficulties  in  the  case.  But 
this  principle  is  so  undefined  in  its  applications  as  to 
leave  the  popular  theory  of  the  Bible  at  strange  hazard. 


THE  APOSTLES   LIABLE  TO   ERROR.  263 

Quite  a  courageous  announcement  of  the  principle  was 
made  by  Dr.  Hey,  a  Divinity  Professor  in  Cambridge 
University,  England,  as  follows :  a  One  thing  which  has 
occasioned  difficulty  is  quotations  of  prophecies  being 
introduced  with  '  that  it  might  be  fulfilled'';  but  this  is 
mere  idiom ;  it  means  no  more  than  a  propos  does  in 
French,  or  than  our  saying,  '  I  dreamt  of  you  last  night : 
now  I  meet  you,  the  dream  is  out.'"*  Stuart  seems  to 
admit  the  same  principle,  in  recognizing  quotations  in 
which  the  fulfilment  "  consists  in  the  striking  points  of 
resemblance."  f 

A  still  graver  question  presents  itself  when  we  ask  if 
it  was  possible  for  the  Christian  Apostles,  the  writers  of 
the  New  Testament,  to  fall  into  mistakes  incidentally  at 
least  connected  with  the  substance  and  history  of  the 
Gospel  religion.  We  shall  shortly  note  some  remark- 
able concessions  on  this  point  from  the  pens  of  the  ablest 
modern  scholars  and  critics  in  nominally  Orthodox  com- 
munions. But  we  have  in  view  now  the  matter  of 
infallible  inspiration.  When  Peter  and  Paul  differed,  that 
is,  in  plain  English,  quarrelled,  about  the  Judaizing  ele- 
ment which  some  wished  to  connect  with  the  adoption 
of  the  Gospel  by  the  Gentiles,  when  Paul  "withstood 
Peter  to  the  face,  because  he  was  to  be  blamed"  (Galat. 
ii.  11),  on  which  side  was  the  inspiration?  If  with  both 
of  them,  as  we  believe  it  was,  it  must  have  consisted 
with  fallibility  in  one  of  them.  To  what  limitation  must 
Paul's  inspiration  have  been  subject  to  account  for  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  know  that  it  was  the  high-priest 
whom  he  had  just  rebuked?  (Acts  xxiii.  5.)  How  are 
we  to  account  for  a  fact  of  which  the  fresh  pages  of  an 
Andover  periodical  now  before  us  remind  us,  that  "  Mat- 
thew says. that  our  Lord  ate  his  Last  Supper  with  his 


*  Lectures  in  Divinity,  Vol.  I.  p.  259. 
t  Critical  History,  &c.,  p.  340. 


264  CASUISTICAL  PLEAS   FOR   THE  BIBLE. 

disciples  on  the  evening  of  the  Passover,  and  John  that 
he  ate  it  the  evening  before  the  Passover  ?  "  * 

Now  is  the  question,  whether  God  has  made  a  reve- 
lation of  religious  truths  to  the  world,  to  be  burdened 
with  all  these  perplexities,  or  to  stand  clear  of  them  ? 
That  question  is  to  be  decided  by  the  possibility  and  the 
success  of  an  attempt  to  reconstruct,  not  a  rigid  theory, 
but  a  satisfactory  view  of  the  authority,  the  inspiration, 
and  the  value  of  those  various  records  which  are  con- 
tained in  the  Bible.  "  Perhaps,"  says  the  author  of 
"  Rational  Godliness,"  "  a  greatness  and  a  place  not- 
far  from  the  Apostles  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  may 
be  reserved  for  some  one  who,  in  true  holiness  and  hu- 
mility of  heart,  shall  be  privileged  to  accomplish  this 
work."  f 

All  these  suggestions  of  perplexity,  with  all  the  specific 
materials  of  them,  may  be  sadly  exaggerated,  or  they 
may  be  regarded  as  of  very  trifling  consequence.  The 
way  in  which  they  ought  to  be  dealt  with  after  they 
have  presented  themselves  to  our  notice,  offers,  after  all, 
the  most  essential  difficulty  in  the  case.  Unitarians  be- 
lieve that  they  may  be  reasonably,  fairly,  and  candidly 
disposed  of,  in  perfect  harmlessness  to  our  faith.  Unita- 
rians also  affirm  that  these  perplexities  have  been  aggra- 
vated by  being  blinked  or  denied,  by  being  treated  with 
shirks  and  evasions,  with  forced  constructions,  and  with 
alarming  appeals  and  remonstrances,  as  if  faith  were  per- 
illed by  recognizing  or  discussing  them.  It  is  our  own 
conviction,  that  pages  may  be  found  in  some  works  writ- 
ten in  defence  of  the  Bible  actually  more  prejudicial  to 
a  healthful  faith  in  its  blessed  revelations  than  anything 
that  can  be  found  in  infidel  works.  Worse  than  all  the 
difficulties  presented  by  the  Bible  are  many  of  the  crook- 
ed and  Jesuitical  pretences  for  their  solution.      There 

*  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  July,  1856,  p.  678.  t  Page  307. 


THE  ORTHODOX  VIEW  OF  THE  BIBLE  UNTENABLE.   265 

are  precious  works  in  our  language,  erudite,  reveren- 
tial, and  honest,  chiefly  from  the  pens  of  those  whom, 
in  the  best  sense  of  the  epithet,  we  may  call  Liberal 
Christians,  in  which  most  of  the  perplexities  which  we 
encounter  have  been  treated  with  caution  and  wisdom. 
Grotius,  Le  Clerc,  Locke,  and  Lardner,  and  many  of  the 
contributors  to  that  admirable  repository  called  Wat- 
son's Tracts,  collected  and  indorsed  by  the  excellent 
Bishop  himself,  have  anticipated  and  dispelled  our  fears 
in  the  direction  of  biblical  criticism. 

Solemn,  therefore,  is  the  obligation  to  which  truth  com- 
mits all  those  who  in  this  age  of  the  world  would  defend 
an  intelligent  faith  in  the  Bible,  to  announce  only  such  a 
theory  concerning  its  authority  and  its  divine  inspiration 
as  is  consistent  with  its  own  contents.  The  strong  must 
in  many  things  bear  the  infirmities  of  the  weak,  but  min- 
isters and  theological  teachers  have  had  many  a  serious 
warning  against  that  extreme  deference  to  old  wives' 
fables  and  old  wives'  prejudices  which  many  of  them 
have  exhibited  in  attempting  to  gloss  over  such  phe- 
nomena of  the  Bible  as  they  were  afraid  fairly  to  recog- 
nize. Do  not  the  strong,  those  who  will  be  strong  in 
unbelief  and  in  hostility  to  the  sacred  mysteries  of  faith 
if  they  are  fed  on  the  husks  of  superstition,  deserve 
some  regard?  Are  all  the  secret  strivings  of  the  ro- 
bust and  inquisitive  and  sceptical  to  pass  for  naught, 
that  the  silly  notions  and  the  anile  prejudices  of  those 
who  are  willing  to  pin  their  faith  upon  the  assertions 
of  a  narrow-minded  religious  exhorter  may  be  kindly 
fostered  ? 

But  we  have  solid  material  yet  to  work  into  this  essay. 
We  revert  to  the  fundamental  question  of  Inspiration. 
The  Orthodox  theory  is  untenable ;  it  is  burdened  with 
mischief.  Over  and  over  again  it  quotes  the  misused 
text,  interpolated  with  a  word  which  turns  its  noble  truth 
into  a  falsehood :  "  All  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration 
23 


266  GAUSSEN   ON  INSPIRATION. 

of  God,  and  is  profitable,"  &c.  2  Tim.  iii.  16.  The  in- 
ference drawn  from  this  perverted  text  is,  that  all  the 
promiscuous  writings  embraced  in  the  Old  Testament 
were  dictated  by  God.  Common  sense  might  suggest 
even  the  grammar  rule  to  be  applied  to  this  passage 
as  meaning,  "  Every  divinely  inspired  writing  is  also 
profitable,"  &c. 

Professor  Gaussen,  of  Geneva,  may  be  taken  as  the 
living  representative  and  advocate  of  a  theory  of  Inspi- 
ration which  was  maintained  by  the  Orthodox  at  the 
origin  of  the  Unitarian  Controversy  here,  but  which  may 
now  be  pronounced  as  utterly  discredited  by  all  scrupu- 
lous and  competent  biblical  scholars.  We  leave  to  those 
who  are  concerned  in  the  more  than  equivocal  case  pre- 
sented to  us  to  reconcile  the  ostensible  public  approba- 
tion which  the  Orthodox  party  have  extended  to  Gaus- 
sen's  work,  with  what  the  leaders  of  that  party  must 
know  to  be  untenable  in  its  main  positions.*  The  fol- 
lowing extracts  will  show  with  what  a  recklessness  of 
consequences  this  modern  Genevan  divine  ventures  to 
affirm  positions  which  common  sense  falsifies.  Speak- 
ing of  the  writers  of  the  Scriptures,  Gaussen  f  says : 
"  Whether  they  record  mysteries  antecedent  to  crea- 
tion, or  those  of  a  futurity  more  remote  than  the  re- 
turn of  the  Son  of  Man ;  or  the  eternal  counsels  of  the 
Most  High  ;  the  secrets  of  the  heart  of  man,  or  the  deep 
things  of  God;   whether  they  describe  their  own  emo- 


*  At  least  two  editions  have  been  published  in  this  country  of  Rev.  E.  N. 
Kirk's  English  Translation  of  Gaussen's  fuller  work,  entitled  "  Theopneusty, 
or  the  Inspiration  of  the  Holy  Scriptures."  This  work  has  been  largely 
indorsed  by  "  the  religious  journals "  of  various  Orthodox  communions 
around  us.  The  terms  of  Christian  courtesy  which  we  desire  to  regard  in 
all  things  restrain  the  utterance  of  our  own  feelings  in  reference  to  the 
policy  which  attempts  to  recommend  such  daring  and  defiant  assertions  as 
those  of  Gaussen. 

t  "  It  is  written " ;  or,  The  Scriptures  the  Word  of  God.  From  the 
French  of  Professor  Gaussen.    London :  Bagster  and  Sons. 


GAUSSEN   ON  INSPIRATION.  267 

tions,  speak  of  things  from  recollection,  or  repeat  what 
has  been  noted  by  contemporaries ;  whether  they  copy 
genealogies,  or  extract  from  uninspired  documents ;  their 
writing  is  inspired ;  what  they  pen  is  dictated  from  on 
high  ;  it  is  always  God  who  speaks,  who  relates,  ordains, 
or  reveals  by  their  mouth,"  &c.  (p.  2.)  Again,  he  says  : 
"  We  have  next  to  inquire,  whether  the  parts  of  Scripture 
which  are  divinely  inspired  are  so  equally  and  entirely ; 
or,  in  other  words,  whether  God  has  provided  in  a  cer- 
tain, though  mysterious  manner,  that  even  the  words  of 
the  sacred  volume  should  be  invariably  what  they  ought 
to  be,  and  that  they  contain  nothing  erroneous.  This 
we  assert  to  be  the  fact."  (p.  4.)  Again  :  "  Jesus  said, 
'  It  is  easier  for  heaven  and  earth  to  pass,  than  for  one 
particle  of  a  letter  of  the  Law  to  fail,'  and  by  the  term 
Law  Jesus  Christ  understood  the  whole  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  even  more  particularly  the  Book  of  Psalms. 
"What  words  can  be  conceived  which  would  express  with 
more  force  and  precision  the  principle  we  are  maintain- 
ing than  the  foregoing?  I  mean  the  principle  of  the 
plenary  inspiration  and  everlasting  character  of  all  the 
parts,  even  to  the  very  letter  of  the  Scriptures.  All  the 
words  of  the  Scriptures,  even  to  the  least  letter  and  par- 
ticle of  a  letter,  are  equal  to  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ 
himself.  Students  of  the  "Word  of  God,  behold  then  the 
theology  of  your  Master  !  "  (p.  54.)  This  reckless  writer, 
when  proffering  to  meet  the  objections  which  assail  his 
theory,  says  :  "  We  will  begin  by  acknowledging  that,  if 
it  were  true  that  there  are  erroneous  facts  and  contra- 
dictory narratives  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  we  must  re- 
nounce the  defence  of  their  plenary  inspiration.  But  we 
can  make  no  such  admission.  These  pretended  errors 
do  not  exist."  (p.  81.)  Our  readers  would  hardly  care 
to  know  how  a  man  who  is  capable  of  making  such  an 
assertion  would  try  to  vindicate  it  in  reference  to  spe- 
cific cases  of  difficulty.     We  can  assure  them,  however, 


268    PROFESSOR  STUART  ON  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

that  his  method  is  tortuous  and  Jesuitical  in  the  worst 
sense. 

If  our  object  were  to  sow  discord  among  those  who 
suppose  that  opposition  to  Unitarian  views  of  the  Bible 
is  a  bond  of  union  among  themselves  and  a  warrant  for 
their  own  common  Orthodoxy,  we  might  make  some 
developments  here  of  quite  a  startling  character.  But 
the  exhibition  would  be  painful  to  all  who  hold  the 
Christian  name,  to  all  who  love  and  cherish  the  Bible 
as  the  most  precious  of  our  earthly  possessions.  We 
will  confront  Gaussen's  views  with  but  moderate  rebukes, 
conveyed,  like  those  we  have  already  quoted  from  Dr. 
Williams,  by  men  of  highest  honor  and  credit.  Profes- 
sor Stuart's  "  Critical  History  and  Defence  of  the  Old 
Testament  Canon,"  which  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  fruit 
of  his  life-long  labors  in  a  beloved  pursuit,  is  a  most  cu- 
rious exhibition  of  weakness  and  strength,  of  boldness 
signified  in  passing  hints,  and  of  timidity  manifested  in 
deference  to  weak  sisters  and  weaker  brethren.  He 
makes  admissions  on  nearly  every  page  which  are  fatal 
to  the  positions  advanced  by  Gaussen,  though  to  the 
uninitiated  in  critical  linguistic  skill  he  appears  to  plead 
for  the  old  Orthodox  notions  of  the  Bible.  His  kindly, 
sometimes  humorous,  but  altogether  risky  way,  of  letting 
out  an  acknowledgment  of  the  embarrassments  of  his 
theory,  really  invests  his  work  with  a  sort  of  mischiev- 
ous charm.  He  wrote  the  work  professedly  to  rebuke 
and  answer  views  advanced  by  Unitarians,  especially 
some  extreme  positions  of  Mr.  Norton  that  have  not 
found  adoption,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  by  any  other 
member  of  our  brotherhood.  But  the  kind-hearted  An- 
dover  Professor  has  proved  himself  a  prime  offender  in 
the  same  outrages  which  Unitarians  have  been  charged 
with  upon  "  a  settled  faith  in  the  Bible."  Notwith- 
standing some  sharp  rebukes  of  the  rationalizers,  some 
little  positive   dogmatism,    some  cautious    salvos,   and 


ALFORD   ON  BIBLICAL   CRITICISM.  269 

some  unsupported  assertions  and  conclusions  of  his 
own,  it  is  utterly  impossible  for  an  intelligent  reader 
to  close  his  book  without  recognizing  its  author  as  a 
heretic  of  the  first  water,  in  view  of  the  old  theory  of  the 
inspired  infallibility  of  the  miscellaneous  contents  of  the 
Bible.  Apart  from  such  acknowledgments  of  opinion  as 
these,  —  that  Ecclesiastes  was  not  written  by  Solomon, 
nor  Joshua  by  Joshua,  that  Job  was  probably  written 
during  the  time  of  the  Kings,  that  Samuel,  Kings,  and 
Chronicles,  Esther  and  Jonah,  present  inexplicable  diffi- 
culties to  us,  and  that  quotations  of  seemingly  prophetic 
passages  from  the  Old  Testament  may  be  made  in  the 
New  by  accommodation,  —  the  whole  spirit  of  his  work 
tends  to  qualify  and  chasten,  rather  than  to  favor,  the 
fond  dream  of  an  infallible  Bible. 

One  of  the  noblest  fruits  of  a  revived  zeal  in  England 
for  critical  Scriptural  study,  is  the  revision  of  the  Greek 
Testament,  with  a  most  scholarly  apparatus,  by  Henry 
Alford,  B.  D.,  late  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
and  now  a  minister  of  the  Established  Church  in  Lon- 
don. There  is  an  honorable  frankness  in  such  passages 
as  follow  from  his  pen. 

"  Christian  commentators  have  been  driven  to  a  system 
of  harmonizing  which  condescends  to  adopt  the  weakest 
compromises,  and  to  do  the  utmost  violence  to  probabil- 
ity and  fairness,  in  its  zeal  for  the  veracity  of  the  Evan- 
gelists. Equally  unworthy  of  the  Evangelists  and  their 
subject  has  been  the  course  of  those  who  are  usually 
thought  the  Orthodox  Harmonists.  They  have  usually 
taken  upon  them  to  state,  that  such  variously  placed 
narratives  [as  those  of  incidents  and  discourses  in  which 
the  Evangelists  differ  and  appear  to  have  confounded  the 
order  of  time  and  circumstance]  do  not  refer  to  the  same 
incidents,  and  so  to  save,  as  they  imagine,  the  credit  of 
the  Evangelists  at  the  expense  of  common  fairness  and 
candor.  Christianity  never  was,  and  never  can  be,  the 
23* 


270  ALFORD   ON  INSPIRATION. 

gainer  by  any  concealment,  warping,  or  avoidance  of  the 
plain  truth,  wherever  it  is  to  be  found."  * 

M  With  regard  to  verbal  inspiration,  I  take  the  sense 
of  it,  as  explained  by  its  most  strenuous  advocates,  to 
be,  that  every  word  and  phrase  of  the  Scriptures  is  ab- 
solutely and  separately  true,  and,  whether  narrative  or 
discourse,  took  place  or  was  said  in  every  most  exact 
particular  as  set  down.  Much  might  be  said  of  the  a 
priori  unworthiness  of  such  a  theory,  as  applied  to  a 
Gospel  whose  character  is  the  freedom  of  the  spirit,  not 
the  bondage  of  the  letter;  but  it  belongs  more  to  my 
present  work  to  try  it  by  applying  it  to  the  Gospels  as 
we  have  them.  And  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that,  being 
thus  applied,  its  effect  will  be  to  destroy  altogether  the 
credibility  of  our  Evangelists.  The  fact  is,  that  this 
theory  [of  verbal  inspiration]  uniformly  gives  way  be- 
fore intelligent  study  of  the  Scriptures  themselves,  and 
is  only  held  consistently  and  thoroughly  by  those  who 
have  never  undertaken  that  study.  When  put  forth  by 
those  who  have,  it  is  never  carried  fairly  through ;  but 
while  broadly  asserted,  is  in  detail  abandoned.  If  I 
understand  plenary  inspiration  rightly,  I  hold  it  to  the 
utmost  as  entirely  consistent  with  the  opinions  expressed 
in  this  section.  The  inspiration  of  the  sacred  writers  I 
believe  to  have  consisted  in  the  fulness  of  the  influence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  specially  raising  them  to,  and  ena- 
bling them  for,  their  work,  in  a  manner  which  distin- 
guishes them  from  all  other  writers  in  the  world,  and  their 
work  from  all  other  ivorks.  The  men  were  full  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  the  books  are  the  pouring  out  of  that  ful- 
ness through  the  men, — the  conservation  of  the  treasure 
in  earthen  vessels.  The  treasure  is  ours  in  all  its  rich- 
ness, but  it  is  ours  as  only  it  can  be  ours,  in  the  imper- 
fections of  human  speech,  in  the  limitation  of  human 

*  Prolegomena,  Chap.  I.  $  IV. 


ALFORD   ON  MISTAKES   OF  THE  APOSTLES.  271 

thought,  in  the  variety  incident  first  to  individual  char- 
acter, and  then  to  manifold  transcription  and  the  lapse 
of  ages."  * 

We  heartily  accord  with  these  noble  statements.  The 
passages  which  we  have  last  quoted  from  Mr.  Alford, 
if  they  were  left  without  illustration,  might  be  pro- 
nounced vague  and  dubious.  We  therefore  add  in  il- 
lustration of  them  a  passage  which  precedes  them  in 
his  own  Dissertation. 

"  There  are  certain  minor  points  of  accuracy  or  inac- 
curacy of  which  human  research  suffices  to  inform  men, 
and  on  which,  from  want  of  that  research,  it  is  often 
the  practice  to  speak  vaguely  and  inexactly.  Such  are 
sometimes  the  conventionally  received  distances  from 
place  to  place  ;  such  are  the  common  accounts  of  phe- 
nomena in  natural  history,  &c.  Now  in  matters  of  this 
kind  the  Evangelists  and  Apostles  were  not  supernatu- 
rally  informed,  but  left,  in  common  with  others,  to  the 
guidance  of  their  natural  faculties.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  citations  and  dates  from  history.  In  the  last 
apology  of  Stephen,  which  he  spoke  being  full  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  with  divine  influence  beaming  from 
his  countenance,  we  have  at  least  two  demonstrable 
historical  inaccuracies.  And  the  occurrence  of  similar 
ones  in  the  Gospels  does  not  in  any  way  affect  the  in- 
spiration or  the  veracity  of  the  Evangelists."  f  Again 
we  say,  he  speaks  for  us. 

Turning  to  the  passage  in  Acts  vii.  14,  16,  where 
Stephen,  as  Mr.  Alford  suggests,  "in  haste  or  inadver- 
tence," made  these  two  "  mistakes,"  —  of  naming  three 
score  and  fifteen  souls  instead  of  seventy,  and  calling  the 
burial-place  Sychem  instead  of  Hebron,  —  we  find  the 
following  manly  comment  from  our  author. 

"  The  fact  of  the  mistake  occurring  where  it  does,  will 

*  Proleg.  Chap.  I.  §  VI.  t  Ibid. 


272  ALFORD   ON  MISTAKES   OF  THE   APOSTLES. 

be  far  more  instructive  to  the  Christian  student  than  the 
most  ingenious  solution  of  the  difficulty  could  be,  if  it 
teaches  him  fearlessly  and  honestly  to  recognize  the 
phenomena  presented  by  the  text  of  Scripture,  instead 
of  wresting  them  to  suit  a  preconceived  theory." 

Similar  to  this  is  Mr.  Alford's  comment  on  1  Cor.  x. 
8,  where  the  Apostle  mistakes  23,000  for  24,000  (see 
Numbers  xxv.  9) :  "  Probably  set  down  here  from  mem- 
ory. The  subtilties  of  commentators  in  order  to  escape 
the  inference  [of  error  in  the  Apostle]  are  discreditable 
alike  to  themselves  and  the  cause  of  sacred  truth." 

On  Romans  xiii.  11  our  author  comments  thus,  in 
reference  to  the  much-vexed  matter  of  the  Apostolic 
delusion  as  to  the  immediate  coming  of  the  end  of  the 
world :  "  A  fair  exegesis  of  this  passage  can  hardly  fail 
to  recognize  the  fact,  that  the  Apostle  here  as  elsewhere 
(1  Thess.  iv.  17 ;  1  Cor.  xv.  51)  speaks  of  the  coming 
of  our  Lord  as  rapidly  approaching.  Professor  Stuart 
(Commentary  on  Romans,  p.  521)  is  shocked  at  the 
idea,  as  being  inconsistent  with  the  inspiration  of  his 
writings.  How  this  can  be,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  imagine 
[then  quoting  Mark  xiii.  32].  And  to  reason,  as  Stuart 
does,  that,  because  Paul  corrects,  in  the  Thessalonians, 
the  mistake  of  imagining  it  to  be  immediately  at  hand, 
therefore  he  did  not  himself  expect  it  soon,  is  surely 
quite  beside  the  purpose." 

It  is  possible  that  Mr.  Alford  may  not  have  looked 
carefully  through  all  the  pages  of  Professor  Stuart's 
voluminous  Commentary;  if  he  had,  he  could  scarcely 
have  failed  at  being  amused  or  startled  by  what  we  are 
about  to  quote.  When  we  consider  how  Unitarians 
have  been  berated  for  saying  substantially  what  we  are 
now  to  read,  we  remind  ourselves  that  the  odor  of  Or- 
thodoxy will  often  neutralize  the  flavor  of  heresy.  Re- 
calling the  horror  with  which,  at  the  opening  of  our 
controversy,  the  assertion  that  the  Apostles  might  pos- 


stuart's  limitation  of  inspiration.  273 

sibly  be  mistaken,  was  received  from  our  side,  let  the 
reader  mark  how  frankly  Professor  Stuart  could  say  the 
same  under  the  protection  of  his  Orthodox  reputation. 
In  his  comment  on  Rom.  i.  13  he  writes :  "  One  thing  is 
clear,  that  the  Apostles  were  not  uniformly  and  always 
guided,  in  all  their  thoughts,  desires,  and  purposes,  by 
an  infallible  spirit  of  inspiration.  Those  who  plead  for 
such  a  uniform  inspiration  may  seem  to  be  zealous  for 
the  honor  of  the  Apostles  and  founders  of  Christianity, 
but  they  do  in  fact  cherish  a  mistaken  zeal.  Those  who 
maintain  the  uniform  inspiration  of  the  Apostles,  and 
yet  admit  (as  they  are  compelled  to  do)  their  errors  in 
purpose,  word,  and  action,  do  in  effect  obscure  the  glory 
of  inspiration  by  reducing  inspired  and  uninspired  men 
to  the  same  level.  To  my  own  mind,  nothing  appears 
more  certain  than  that  inspiration  in  any  respect  what- 
ever was  not  abiding  and  uniform  with  Apostles  or  any 
of  the  primitive  Christians.  [To  Jesus  only,  adds  the 
commentator,  was  unmeasured  and  permanent  inspira- 
tion given.]  This  view  of  the  subject  frees  it  from 
many  and  most  formidable  difficulties.  It  assigns  to 
the  Saviour  the  pre-eminence  which  is  justly  due.  It 
accounts  for  the  mistakes  and  errors  of  his  Apostles. 
At  the  same  time  it  does  not  detract  in  the  least  degree 
from  the  certainty  and  validity  of  the  Apostolic  sayings 
and  doings,  when  these  ministers  of  the  Gospel  were 
under  the  special  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God." 

" When  they  were  under"  &c.  We  draw  the  reader's 
attention  to  this  loose  but  convenient  expression  of  Pro- 
fessor Stuart,  but  must  leave  the  point  without  further 
remark,  except  the  simple  suggestion  that  an  admission 
of  a  single  instance  of  mistake,  or  error  "in  purpose, 
word,  or  action"  in  the  Apostles,  impairs  the  inspired 
infallibility  of  their  teachings  and  writings,  and  leaves 
every  reader  to  draw  the  line  as  best  he  can  in  deciding 
the  authority  of  Scripture. 


274       STANLEY  ON  MISTAKES  OF  ST.  PAUL. 

Dr.  Arnold  candidly  yields  the  point  that  Paul  did 
erroneously  believe  and  teach  that  the  world  was  com- 
ing to  an  end  in  his  own  generation.*  Mr.  Stanley,  also 
of  Oxford,  another  of  the  advanced  minds  of  the  Eng- 
lish Church,  the  biographer  of  Dr.  Arnold,  and  the  son 
and  biographer  of  the  good  Bishop  of  Norwich,  makes 
the  same  admission.  Mr.  Stanley  seems  to  feel  less 
anxiety  in  allowing  Paul's  error  here,  than  in  reference 
to  another  serious  matter.  The  Apostle,  in  that  pre- 
cious chapter  to  the  Corinthians  on  the  Resurrection  (1 
Cor.  xv.),  asks,  "  What  shall  they  do  which  are  baptized 
for  the  dead,  if  the  dead  rise  not  at  all?"  (ver.  29.)  Mr. 
Stanley  remarks  upon  these  words :  "  Their  natural  sig- 
nification undoubtedly  is,  '  Those  who  are  baptized  vica- 
riously for  the  dead,'  and  this  meaning  is  strongly  con- 
firmed by  finding  that  there  were  some  sects  in  the  first 
three  centuries,  one  at  least  of  which  extends  back  to 
the  Apostolical  age,  who  had  this  practice.  From  Chry- 
sostom  we  learn  (accompanied  by  an  apology  for  con- 
vulsing his  audience  with  laughter  at  the  account  of  a 
ceremony  so  ridiculous)  that,  '  after  a  catechumen  [dying 
unbaptized]  was  dead/  (implying  that  it  was  chiefly  in 
such  cases  that  it  took  place,)  'they  hid  a  living  man 
under  the  bed  of  the  deceased ;  then  coming  to  the  dead 
man  they  spoke  to  him,  and  asked  him  whether  he 
would  receive  baptism ;  and  he  making  no  answer,  the 
other  replied  in  his  stead,  and  so  they  baptized  the  living 
for  the  dead.' "  f  Here  the  Apostle  evidently  adduces 
the  disappointment  of  those  who  practised  such  a  super- 
stition, as  one  of  the  deplorable  disappointments  of  a 
Christian's  faith  which  would  result  from  the  falsifica- 
tion of  his  doctrine  of  the  resurrection.  How  could  he 
make  such  a  reference  in  a  way  rather  to  countenance 


*  Christian  Life,  Notes,  pp.  488,  489. 
t  Stanley  on  Corinthians,  Vol.  I.  p.  372. 


tone  of  st.  paul's  teaching.  275 

than  rebuke  the  superstition?  Mr.  Stanley  notes  the 
methods  to  which  recourse  has  been  had  for  "  escaping 
from  the  difficulty."  He  himself  accounts  it  to  the 
Apostle's  habit  "  of  accommodation  to  the  feelings  and 
opinions  "  of  those  whom  he  addressed,  as  in  "  his  fre- 
quent adoption  of  reasonings  founded  on  the  allegorical 
interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament,  in  which,  indeed, 
the  Apostle  may,  to  a  certain  extent,  have  shared  him- 
self," &c. 

Mr.  Jowett,  in  his  work  on  some  of  Paul's  Epistles, 
even  treats  us  to  an  essay  on  the  Apostle's  mistake  in 
reference  to  the  end  of  the  world,  and  other  subjects  on 
which  he  was  in  error.  The  discussion  is  a  reverent  one, 
but  it  goes  deep  into  the  heart  of  a  matter  vital  to  this 
question  of  inspired  infallibility  in  the  teachings  and 
writings  embraced  in  the  Bible.  The  single  point  of 
an  error  as  to  the  immediate  conflagration  of  the  world, 
if  confined  to  its  own  subject-matter,  might  seem  of 
limited  importance ;  but  the  question  forces  itself  upon 
the  thought  of  a  serious  and  inquisitive  reader,  May 
not  the  Apostle's  expectation  on  this  point  have  affected 
all  his  teachings,  have  colored  all  his  doctrines ;  and  es- 
pecially, did  it  not  intensify,  aggravate,  and  throw  out  of 
just  proportions,  his  relative  estimate  of  a  Christian's  duty 
to  despise  this  life,  in  reference  to  a  life  to  come  ?  An  in- 
terest in  the  affairs  of  this  world,  in  marrying  and  giving 
in  marriage,  in  buying  and  selling,  in  providing  for  and 
educating  one's  children,  and  in  establishing  the  institu- 
tions of  society  on  a  firm  foundation, —  an  interest  in 
such  matters  of  reasonable  forethought,  is  one  thing,  if 
the  consummation  of  all  terrestrial  concerns  is  to  be 
looked  for  within  a  score  of  years,  and  it  is  a  wholly 
different  thing  if  "  the  time  is  not  short,"  and  "  the  day 
of  the  Lord  is  not  at  hand."  It  might  not  be  difficult  to 
show  that  the  alarmed  and  expectant  state,  the  forced  su- 
periority to  all  worldly  interests,  and  the  tone  of  "  heav- 


276     THE   CHRIST   OF   THE    GOSPELS   AND   THE   EPISTLES. 

enly-mindedness,"  which  the  Apostle  commended  to  his 
converts  in  view  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord  while  some 
of  his  generation  were  yet  alive,  have  introduced  some 
exaggerated  or  disproportioned  conceptions  into  the  idea 
of  "  true  piety."  Certainly  the  fact  that  "  the  coming 
of  the  Lord  "  may  be  realized  to  any  one  of  us  individ- 
ually at  any  moment  of  our  uncertain  lives,  will  make 
motives  drawn  from  such  a  possibility  always  harmless 
and  always  of  a  wholesome  influence  over  us.  Still 
the  question  whether  the  Apostles  believed  that  this 
world  was  to  be  the  scene  of  Christian  conflict  during 
unnumbered  ages  of  the  slow  triumph  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  or  that  it  was  to  be  burned  up  and  its  judgment 
sealed  within  a  score  or  two  of  years,  cannot  be  regarded 
as  irrelevant  to  a  discussion  of  the  inspired  infallibility 
of  their  teachings. 

And  this  question  does  but  logically  and  fairly  open 
the  way  to  yet  another  question,  which  goes  deeper  into 
the  profound  speculations  of  our  modern  Christian  com- 
mentators. Mr.  Stanley  puts  the  query  in  this  plain 
form :  "Is  the  representation  of  Christ  in  the  Epistles 
the  same  as  the  representation  of  Christ  in  the  Gospels  ? 
Is  the  *  Gospel '  of  the  Evangelical  Apostle  different 
from  the  '  Gospel '  of  the  Evangelistic  narratives  ?  "  * 
We  know  that  some  of  the  fellow-laborers  of  Paul  in- 
timated that  he  "had  not  seen  the  Lord  Jesus,"  that 
he  was  not  truly  an  "  Apostle  of  Christ,"  and  that  "  he 
taught  things  contrary  to  Christ's  teaching."  The  phe- 
nomena which  indicate  diversity  of  view  or  doctrine 
among  the  Apostles  must  of  course  engage  our  atten- 
tion. We  must  remember  that  the  Judaizing  party  was 
not  confined  to  uninspired  disciples,  but  involved  the 
heralds  of  the  Gospel  also.  Therefore  it  is  not  wholly 
without  a  show  of  reason  that  some  scholarly  critics 

*  Stanley  on  Corinthians,  Vol.  II.  p.  276. 


BIBLICAL   CRITICISM  ABOVE   SECTARIANISM.  277 

have  declared,  and  some  unlearned  readers  have  imag- 
ined, that  when  amid  local  controversies  and  under  tech- 
nicalities of  language  the  Gospel  was  preached  in  Ju- 
daea, Samaria,  Asia  Minor,  and  Rome,  the  simplicity  of 
its  pure  evangelic  doctrine  was  to  a  perceptible  degree 
impaired.  Orthodoxy,  on  the  one  hand,  objects  to  what 
it  calls  the  ingenuities  of  Unitarian  criticism  in  putting 
a  gloss  upon  the  technicalities  or  the  rhetoric  of  some 
sentences  in  the  Epistles  ;  but  on  the  other  hand  it  works 
up  most  elaborate  and  intricate  speculations  upon  those 
mysterious  profundities  of  spiritual  experience  and  of 
"the  plan  of  redemption"  which  it  finds  intimated  in 
the  same  sentences.  Is  it  probable,  now,  that  the  unso- 
phisticated, minds  to  which  the  Gospel  was  offered,  "the 
poor,"  the  "  babes  in  Christ,"  whether  Jew  or  Gentile, 
could  enter  into  the  philosophy  of  Orthodoxy  ?  Mr. 
Jowett,  with  his  very  keen,  but  by  no  means  irreverent 
method  of  analysis,  goes  perhaps  a  little  farther  in  the 
direction  of  allowance  for  an  Apostolic  adulteration  of 
the  pure  Gospel,  than  even  our  own  brethren  might  ap- 
prove. But  the  issue  itself  which  is  covered  by  all  these 
questions  is  one  that  has  very  momentous  bearings  upon 
our  present  theme,  and,  while  it  tasks  the  noblest  powers 
of  an  intellect  trained  in  Gospel  humility,  it  refuses  to 
be  pronounced  upon  by  dogmatism  or  by  the  depreca- 
tory ban  of  the  alarmist. 

We  hope  that  we  have  made  it  appear  that  much  of 
all  this  critical  work  of  studying  and  testing  the  Bible 
stands  above  any  sectarian  object,  and  designs,  in  the  full 
earnestness  of  a  purpose  common  to  all  who  love  the 
Scriptures,  to  sustain  their  authority,  to  remove  preju- 
dices, to  ward  off  assaults,  and  to  make  them  more  and 
more  precious  to  the  whole  race  of  men.  Of  course  we 
maintain,  because  we  believe,  and  may  even  say  that  we 
know,  that  false  doctrine  is  indebted  for  some  of  its 
credit  to  erroneous  views  of  Scripture,  to  unfair  construc- 
24 


278  RICH  MATERIALS   FOR  CRITICAL   STUDY. 

tions  of  texts.  Those  who  are  not  familiar  with  the 
processes  of  critical  study  have  no  adequate  conception 
of  the  range  over  which  Scriptural  criticism,  when  intel- 
ligent, keen,  and  thorough,  and  still  reverent,  may  ex- 
tend. Many  who  read  the  Bible  in  English  come  almost 
to  forget  that  it  was  ever  translated ;  that  when  it  was 
translated,  it  was  by  men  like  ourselves,  from  manuscript 
parchments  written  by  men  like  ourselves ;  that,  since  our 
translation  was  made,  many  old  and  very  valuable  manu- 
scripts have  been  discovered;  and  that  our  knowledge  of 
the  original  languages  and  of  Oriental  history  and  life 
has  greatly  increased.  Certainly  in  view  of  all  these 
facts  one  should  not  marvel  that  there  are  materials  and 
grounds  for  much  fair  criticism  of  the  English  Bible. 
Nor  can  an  intelligent  reader,  however  vigorous  his 
faith,  resist  the  impression,  when  perusing  those  por- 
tions, especially  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  are  con- 
temporaneous with  our  earliest  classical  literature,  that 
the  spirit  of  the  writers  often  presents  as  miraculous 
what  under  other  circumstances  would  have  been  re- 
garded as  natural.  The  religious  consciousness  of  the 
Jews  that  they  were  under  a  peculiar  providential  train- 
ing, may  reasonably  and  reverently  be  supposed  to  have 
dictated  much  in  the  records  which  represents  God  as 
nearer  to  them  than  to  the  rest  of  his  children  on  the 
earth. 

Again,  few  persons  are  aware  what  a  range  of  mean- 
ing and  interpretation  may  be  covered  by  some  im- 
portant words  and  phrases  and  sentences.  The  ambi- 
guities of  language,  its  idioms,  its  duplicated  relations  to 
sense  and  soul,  the  associations  acquired  by  words  from 
technical  use,  from  prevailing  theories  of  life  and  truth, 
and  from  each  one's  own  private  experience  and  culture, 
all  gather  their  richest,  as  well  as  their  most  perplexing 
and  misleading  materials,  about  the  Bible.  Scholars 
here  have  an  advantage  in  some  respects  above  the  un- 


SIGNIFICANT  TERMS   IN  SCRIPTURE.  279 

learned,  but  in  many  cases  scholars  are  baffled.  Take, 
for  instance,  a  sentence  from  the  Gospel  which  has  no 
connection  with  doctrinal  controversy.  Jesus  says  to 
Martha,  as  we  read  his  words,  "  But  one  thing  is  need- 
ful." (Luke  x.  42.)  We  ask  what  the  words  mean. 
Now  the  wisest  scholar  on  the  earth  cannot  pronounce 
positively,  or  give  us  a  decisive  reason  on  the  one  side 
or  the  other,  for  interpreting  the  passage  to  mean,  "Only 
one  article  of  food  is  necessary  for  me  "  ;  or,  "  Only  one 
thing  —  religion  —  is  necessary  for  you."  And  then 
there  is  matter  for  whole  libraries  of  curious  and  search- 
ing criticism,  for  learned  commentaries  and  scholarly  in- 
vestigation, in  debating  the  meaning  of  many  words 
and  phrases  in  the  Bible  which  have  been  invested  with 
paramount  interest  by  our  controversies.  Is  the  Scrip- 
tural phrase  "  Son  of  God "  used  to  express  the  pecu- 
liar fondness  and  nearness  of  a  relation  of  obedient  holi- 
ness, or  an  actual  "  Sonship  "  in  a  sense  answering  to 
the  earthly  tie  between  a  father  and  a  child  ?  The  sen- 
tences, "  This  is  my  body,"  "  This  cup  is  my  blood," 
open  the  issue  about  Transubstantiation  between  Ro- 
manists and  Protestants ;  but  when  Orthodox  Protes- 
tantism has  availed  itself  of  a  certain  method  of  inter- 
pretation in  fixing  the  sense  of  those  sentences,  it  turns 
against  us  when  we  apply  the  same  method  upon  other 
sentences.  When  the  terrified  Pagan  jailer  asks,  "What 
shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  Orthodoxy  supposes  him  to 
have  been  struck  with  what  it  defines  as  conviction,  and 
to  have  been  instantly  directed  to  trust  in  Christ  in  the 
sense  of  an  expiation.  Thousands  and  thousands  of 
sermons  have  been  preached  under  that  view  of  the 
text.  Is  the  view  justified  ?  The  words  Faith,  Salva- 
tion, Justification,  Election,  Eternal,  and  many  more, 
which  either  are  used  in  peculiar  senses  in  the  Bible,  or 
have  been  turned  to  peculiar  uses  because  they  are  in 
the  Bible,  carry  with  them  now  an  equal  weight  of  im- 


280  RESULTS    OF   BIBLICAL   CRITICISM. 

portance  from  doctrinal  theology  and  the  science  of  crit- 
icism. 

Another  very  serious  question,  which  is  claimed  to  be 
exclusively  within  the  province  of  fair  criticism,  asks 
whether  the  use  of  certain  technical  terms,  and  the  ref- 
erence to  certain  current  views  in  popular  language,  by 
the  Saviour  and  his  Apostles,  do  or  do  not  ratify  the 
doctrines  or  opinions  supposed  to  be  conveyed  in  such 
terms  and  such  language.  By  the  decision  pronounced 
upon  that  question  the  doctrine  of  a  Personal  Devil,  and 
the  reality  of  the  possession  of  human  beings  by  his  emis- 
saries, will  be  affirmed  either  to  have  been  substantiated 
by  the  Saviour  and  his  Apostles,  or  to  have  been  only 
incidentally  noticed  by  them,  without  receiving  any  au- 
thentication from  such  notice. 

Occasionally,  in  the  works  of  disputants  at  the  present 
day  who  have  had  a  scholarly  training,  we  meet  with 
what  seems  to  us  an  obstinate  persistency  in  maintain- 
ing certain  readings  and  constructions,  and  certain  cor- 
rupted texts,  which  have  been  fairly  and  fully  condemned 
on  adequate  authority.  Then  we  are  led  to  ask,  To 
what  end  do  patient  explorers  hunt  out  old  manuscripts 
and  edit  their  recensions,  —  to  what  end  do  munificent 
donors  found  libraries  and  theological  professorships, 
and  multiply  all  the  critical  helps  of  grammars,  diction- 
aries, and  commentaries, — if  from  our  seats  of  sacred 
scholarship  are  to  come  renewed  appeals  to  old  preju- 
dices, pleas  in  defence  of  old  errors,  and  flat  denials  of 
any  real  progress? 

We  must  reach  the  conclusion  of  our  present  task  by 
a  statement  of  the  results  to  which  it  leads  us.  We 
have  in  our  hands  a  volume  which  bears  to  us  the  high- 
est character  for  holiness  and  truth.  We  receive  it  as 
an  actual  communication  from  another  world  ;  while  the 
alternative  of  holding  right  or  wrong  views  concerning 
the  book  is  made  to  suspend  the  question,  whether  it 


RESULTS   OF   BIBLICAL   CRITICISM.  281 

can  be  regarded  and  proved  to  be  precious  "and  authori- 
tative as  such  an  alleged  divine  gift  should  be.  The 
Bible  has  been  assaulted  by  hostile  criticism ;  a  stand- 
ard has  been  set  for  it  by  men,  which  is  denied  to  be 
warranted  by  its  own  claims  or  contents;  flaws  have 
been  found  in  it  which  cannot  be  repaired  in  consist- 
ency with  once  prevailing  views  of  its  infallibility  and 
its  verbal  inspiration.  The  close  and  rigid  study  and 
criticism  to  which  modern  scholarship  has  subjected  it, 
have  pretty  well  settled,  in  the  minds  of  its  most  intel- 
ligent readers,  the  decision,  that  some  qualifications  and 
limitations  must  be  allowed  in  abatement  of  the  posi- 
tive standard  that  has  been  claimed  for  it.  It  is  deemed 
by  Unitarians  the  part  of  simple  honesty  and  wisdom  to 
make  this  concession,  and  to  insist  upon  its  being  made. 
Without  forgetting  the  respect  due  to  those  who  do  not 
accord  with  them,  and  recognizing  the  honorable  motives 
of  some  who  carry  special  pleading  in  support  of  a  crip- 
pled tradition  beyond  what  seem  to  be  the  bounds  of 
candor  or  justice,  Unitarians  hold  that  an  attempt  to 
sustain  such  a  view  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  as 
has  been  reasserted  by  Gaussen,  subjects  the  interests 
of  true  faith  and  piety  to  a  fearful  risk.  The  fact  that 
some  persons  are  willing  to  avert  their  own  gaze  from 
all  the  real  difficulties  of  the  case,  will  not  close  the  eyes 
or  silence  the  complaints  of  others.  That  the  strong 
and  childlike  in  the  docility  of  faith  are  ready  to  believe 
in  behalf  of  the  Bible  that  full  explanations  may  at  one 
time  or  another  be  given  to  all  its  historical,  scientific,  or 
critical  perplexities,  ought  not  to  make  them  obstinate 
or  unjust  in  slighting  the  embarrassments  of  faith  for 
such  as  may  value  the  Bible  as  highly  as  themselves. 

Within  the  last  few  years  we  have  had  offered  to  us 

the  best  fruits  of  long  and  anxious  discussions  upon 

the  authority  and  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures. 

Angry  controversies,  venturesome  scepticism,  perilous 

24* 


282  MODIFIED   ORTHODOXY  ON   SCRIPTURE. 

and  reckless  audacity  in  theorizing,  have  mingled  largely, 
but  we  must  think  only  incidentally,  in  the  great  work  of 
Scriptural  criticism.  We  would  by  no  means  undertake 
to  justify  the  positions  which  some  even  of  the  most 
eminent  among  Unitarian  interpreters  have  taken.  Far 
otherwise.  Our  own  humble  opinion  is,  that  in  general 
we  have  made  larger  concessions  to  what  threatened  to 
be  a  destructive  criticism,  than  the  emergencies  of  the 
case  have  really  been  proved  to  demand.  For  ourselves, 
we  yield  only  inch  by  inch,  and  then  only  when  the 
necessity  is  fairly  made  out,  in  each  instance  which  qual- 
ifies the  highest  possible  view  of  the  authority  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  chief  contents  of  the  Bible.  But  when 
any  demand  is  fairly  made  out,  we  pay  our  homage  to 
truth  under  the  form  of  concessions  to  it,  not  under  the 
form  of  obstinate  denials  of  its  presence.  It  is  with  a 
profound  satisfaction  that  we  now  find  in  the  works  of 
distinguished  scholars  and  divines,  nominally  of  various 
creeds,  admissions,  full,  frank,  and  complete,  of  views 
advanced  by  Unitarians  in  qualification  of  the  popular 
estimate  of  the  Bible,  and  in  the  general  and  specific 
applications  of  criticism  to  important  texts.  Gaussen 
has  indeed  received  the  indorsement  of  Orthodox  "  re- 
ligious journals."  Let  us  see  how  the  mature  views  of 
Tholuck,  as  they  are  now  obtaining  currency,  will  be 
treated  by  those  who  have  heretofore  given  him  their 
love  and  confidence.  Neander  has  strained  the  elasti- 
city of  Orthodox  attachment  to  its  utmost  limits  by  his 
historical,  doctrinal,  and  symbolic  construction  of  Chris- 
tian ideas.  Bunsen  and  Tholuck  have  yet  a  repute  to 
keep,  but  if  they  retain  it,  let  them  prize  it  as  generous. 

If  we  bring  into  close  comparison  some  of  the  lec- 
tures, essays,  or  sermons  of  eminent  modern  writers, 
Orthodox  and  Unitarian,  upon  the  inspiration  and  au- 
thority of  the  text  of  Scripture,  we  are  struck  with  the 
following  difference  in  their  tenor,  —  the  difference  shall 


ORTHODOX  AND   UNITARIAN  METHODS.  283 

stand  as  one  of  great  or  of  little  moment,  as  our  readers 
shall  choose.  The  elaborate  Orthodox  essay  begins, 
takes  its  start,  opens,  with  bolder  assertions  of  Infallibil- 
ity and  Plenary  Inspiration  than  we  could  make,  pitched 
in  the  old  tone,  as  if  announcing  the  old  theory  in  a  way 
determined  to  maintain  it,  stiffly,  resolutely,  and  de- 
fiantly. But  read  on  carefully,  and  you  will  find  admis- 
sions cautiously,  timidly  yielded,  forced  out  by  facts 
which  are  not  to  be  winked  out  of  sight  when  such  men 
as  Professor  Stuart,  J.  P.  Smith,  Arnold,  Alford,  Jowett, 
and  Tholuck  have  their  eyes  turned  upon  them.  When 
you  reach  the  end  of  the  essay,  you  will  find  that  every 
allowance  has  been  granted  that  you  think  is  essential, 
and  that  the  conclusion  is  in  marked  contrast  with  the 
beginning.  You  may  think  of  the  text,  "  Let  not  him 
that  girdeth  on  his  harness  boast  himself  as  he  that 
putteth  it  off."  On  the  other  hand,  a  similar  essay  by 
a  Unitarian  will  begin  with  perhaps  an  excessive  allow- 
ance of  concessions,  —  with  an  admission  of  all  the 
necessary  qualifications  and  limitations  of  the  claim  of 
inspiration.  It  will  have  in  view,  at  the  start,  the  dif- 
ficulties which  are  to  be  encountered.  Therefore  it  will 
not  open  so  boldly  or  defiantly  as  an  Orthodox  essay. 
But  when  it  has  made  its  concessions,  it  will  hold  reso- 
lutely to  the  main  substance,  the  essential  truth,  the 
kernel  of  the  nut  which  is  within  the  shell.  The  con- 
tents of  the  two  essays  will  have  more  in  common 
than  we  should  by  any  means  expect.  In  some  cases 
we  might  even  conceive  that,  if  they  had  come  from  the 
same  printing-office,  some  labor  of  composition  might 
have  been  saved  by  transposing-  and  overrunning  pages 
or  paragraphs.  Is  the  difference  of  great  or  of  little 
moment  ? 

We  must  be  supposed  to  have  intimated  all  through 
our  discussion  our  own  views  upon  the  serious  themes 
involved  in  it.  If  any  one  asks,  To  what  extent  must 
the  popular  estimate  of  the  authority  and    inspiration 


284  INTELLIGENT  AND   DEVOUT   STUDY. 

of  the  Bible,  as  a  whole,  be  reduced  ?  what  limitations 
are  to  be  defined  for  denial  ?  what  position  is  to  be  as- 
sumed for  rebuilding  a  new  citadel  of  faith  ?  we  can  but 
answer,  The  Christian  scholarship  of  this  and  of  the  next 
ages  will  decide  those  questions.  Our  province  has  been 
merely  to  redeem  these  momentous  issues  from  the  con- 
tempt of  a  poor  sectarian  strife. 

The  most  favorable  position  for  the  attainment  of 
just  views  on  this  great  subject  is  that  which  is  occu- 
pied by  a  faithful  and  devout  Christian  minister,  who 
has  received  the  best  intellectual  culture  of  his  time. 
The  most  thorough  critical  study  of  the  Bible  in  pri- 
vate, and  a  daily  application  of  its  lessons  to  the  sins 
and  sorrows,  the  duties  and  the  straits  of  human  life, 
are  the  two  conditions  which  must  meet  and  harmo- 
nize. The  critical  study  of  the  Bible,  with  no  reference 
to  its  uses  "for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for 
instruction  in  righteousness,"  will  be  sure  to  turn  the 
most  devout  man  into  the  coldest  of  sceptics.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  devout  exhorter,  with  his  thumbs  and 
fingers  inserted  in  the  Bible  ready  to  turn  to  any  part 
of  it  for  words  which  he  ascribes  directly  to  God,  if  his 
ignorance  exposes  him  to  recklessness,  and  his  feeling 
runs  into  rant,  will  make  infidels  of  the  majority  of  his 
hearers,  and  fanatics  of  the  rest.  The  educated  and  de- 
vout minister  alone  can  meet  the  emergencies  of  the 
case.  His  critical  studies,  his  knowledge  of  the  unbe- 
lieving, as  well  as  of  the  "  religious  "  world,  will  keep 
him  mindful  of  the  perplexities  which  faith  in  its  re- 
lation to  the  historical  records  of  a  revelation  must  pre- 
sent, and  will  lead  him  continually  to  draw  from  his 
own  triumphs  over  struggle  and  doubt  the  wisest  aid  in 
dealing  with  the  difficulties  of  others.  His  use  of  the 
Bible  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  sick-chamber,  as  the  in- 
estimable and  inexhaustible  source  of  all  holy  lessons 
which  have  power  over  the  soul  of  man  and  can  alone 
sanctify  life  and  cheer  affliction,  will  day  by  day  renew 


THE  ROCK  OF  OUR  REFUGE.  285 

his  grateful  confidence  in  the  preciousness  of  the  sacred 
volume.  He  knows  that  it  is  the  world's  only  light,  law, 
and  hope.  The  very  conventionalities  of  his  office,  the 
very  straits  of  his  daily  and  weekly  duties,  require  that 
those  to  whom  he  ministers  should  with  him  believe  and 
love  the  Bible.  The  measure  of  his  power  over  the  sin- 
ful and  the  afflicted  —  and  those  terms  embrace  all  that 
live  —  is  proportioned  to  the  vigor  of  his  own  faith,  and 
to  the  depth  of  his  own  experimental  acquaintance  with 
the  truths  conveyed  in  the  Bible.  He  is  in  every  way 
concerned  that  faith  in  it  should  reach  the  highest 
possible  height,  and  that  gratitude  and  reverence  for 
it  should  know  no  abatement.  For  many  weary  cen- 
turies the  piety  of  Christendom  was  kept  alive  by 
the  Romish  priest  without  the  Bible.  It  will  be  hard 
if  that  piety  cannot  live  with  a  brighter  and  purer 
vigor  through  the  Protestant  minister  with  the  Bible. 

Let  us  have  no  fear  of  the  work  of  scholarly  and 
reverent  criticism  upon  Scripture.  It  is  in  the  hands  of 
men  and  women  who  too  well  know  its  worth  to  allow 
it  to  suffer  from  the  very  inquisition  which  tests  its 
value.  We  know  nothing  beyond  what  the  Bible 
teaches  us  in  any  direction  or  upon  any  subject  in 
which  it  undertakes  to  instruct  us.  One  barrier  is 
fixed  ;  one  limit  is  certain  ;  one  condition,  known  from 
the  beginning,  still  stands  unchallenged,  —  the  Divine 
element  in  the  Bible  always  has  exceeded,  exceeds  now, 
and  always  will  be  acknowledged  as  exceeding,  its 
human  element.  The  Bible  has  floated  on  the  sea  of 
human  life,  below  which  so  much  has  sunk  of  the 
ever-changing  interests,  and  of  the  ever-changing  gen- 
erations, of  men.  Or  rather  it  has  risen  from  that  sea 
as  an  island  rock,  and  has  heard  the  storms  of  ages, 
and  has  been  lashed  by  all  the  waves  that  have  tossed 
us  and  our  poor  barks.  Can  we  find  a  better  an- 
chorage ? 


RELATIONS 


OF 


REASON  AND  FAITH 


RELATIONS 


REASON    AND    FAITH 


We  have  carried  out,  according  to  our  ability,  the  in- 
tention intimated  in  the  first  of  these  papers  upon  the 
Unitarian  Controversy.  We  have  discussed  the  bearings 
of  this  controversy  upon  the  Scripture  doctrines  of  the  na- 
ture and  the  state  of  man,  —  of  God  and  Christ,  —  and  of 
atonement,  —  and  upon  the  grounds  and  methods  of  bib- 
lical criticism  and  interpretation.  These  large  themes 
have  been  debated  for  ages  by  parties  holding  different 
convictions  concerning  them.  The  history  of  opinions 
on  these  subjects,  a  mere  review  or  summary  of  the  cum- 
brous literature  of  these  discussions,  would  be  nothing 
more  than  an  extension  of  materials  similar  to  those  with 
which  we  have  had  to  deal,  in  confining  our  view,  for 
the  most  part,  to  the  last  half-century  of  the  controversy. 
The  controversy  on  these  doctrines  has  divided  those 
who  otherwise  would  have  been  friends  in  all  the  rela- 
tions and  sympathies  of  a  Christian  fellowship,  while 
their  conscientious  differences  upon  matters  which,  in 
the  view  of  both  parties,  involve  the  vital  truths  of  the 
Gospel,  have  alienated  them  widely  from  each  other. 
These  protracted  and  unfinished  discussions  carry  with 
25 


290  SINCERITY   IN   BELIEF. 

them  a  moral  distinct  from  any  of  their  own  specific 
issues.  That  moral  embraces  many  serious  and  practi- 
cal lessons.  This  great  lesson,  especially,  stands  promi- 
nent,—  that  experience  has  proved  it  to  be  altogether 
unlikely  that  all  professed  Christians  will  ever  thoroughly 
accord  in  matters  of  speculative  faith,  of  doctrinal  opin- 
ion, or  religious  observance.  There  are  reasons  which 
compel  us  to  adopt  this  conclusion.  The  materials  for 
the  formation  and  exercise  of  our  faith  are  found  in  a 
large  book,  as  to  the  authority,  meaning,  and  interpreta- 
tion of  which  there  certainly  is  room  for  a  wide  variety 
of  opinion.  Then  the  vagueness  of  language,  the  diver- 
sities of  intelligence,  insight,  temperament,  sensibility,  of 
mental  depth  and  power,  of  moral  culture  and  of  spirit- 
ual apprehension  among  human  beings,  would  persuade 
us  that  it  is  hopeless  to  suppose  that  they  can  ever  be- 
lieve alike  in  a  sense  which  includes  the  two  vigorous 
conditions  of  true  faith,  —  the  thinking  alike  and  the 
feeling  alike.  The  utmost  that  we  can  look  for  in  this 
direction  is  to  divest  controversy  and  all  religious  differ- 
ences of  everything  that  is  acrimonious  and  odious 
and  passionate,  so  that  we  may  at  least  learn  the  graces 
of  courtesy,  of  kind  temper,  and  of  charity :  so  that  we 
may  respect  sincerity  of  belief  everywhere ;  for  there  are 
tokens  which  will  always  prove  whether  one  is  sincere, 
earnest,  truth-loving,  and  really  religious  in  forming  and 
holding  his  convictions.  When  wise  and  faithful  and 
devout  persons  differ  very  decidedly  in  opinion,  we  must 
find  what  relief  we  can  —  and  the  relief  is  highly  com- 
pensatory for  our  anxiety  —  in  reflecting  that  they  also 
agree  in  loving  the  Gospel  and  the  Bible.  The  most 
eccentric  orbits  are  all  made  true  to  mathematics,  be- 
cause they  own  a  primary  attraction. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  to  allow  sincerity  in  belief  or 
opinion  is  one  thing,  and  to  attach  to  it  the  epithet 
Christian,  thus  admitting  that  the  extremest  differences 


THE  FORMULA  "FIDES  ANTE  INTELLECTUM."    291 

of  a  professed  Christian  faith  come  within  the  safe  range 
of  acceptance  with  God,  is  quite  another  thing.  It  is 
insisted  on  the  popular  side  in  this  controversy,  that 
there  is  a  limit  within  which  liberty  of  opinion,  however 
sincere,  must  be  restricted,  if  it  would  be  safe.  The 
human  mind,  with  all  its  inquisitiveness,  its  boastfulness, 
and  its  love  of  freedom  in  its  speculations,  is  but  one  of  the 
elements  to  be  taken  into  account  in  discussing  matters 
of  faith.  There  is  the  positive  authority  of  Christian 
truth,  which  is  paramount  to  any  claim  of  liberty  we 
may  set  up  for  the  exercise  of  our  reason.  Sincerity 
and  zeal,  when  transfused  into  speculative  opinions,  im- 
ply that  there  is  some  truth  of  transcendent  authority 
and  value  in  the  subject-matter  of  belief.  There  must, 
then,  be  an  attractive  power,  a  compelling  sway,  in  truth 
revealed  by  God  to  compensate  and  hold  in  check  the 
tendencies  of  reason  to  fly  off  into  independent  orbits  of 
their  own.  The  question  whether  there  is  anything  in 
revelation  which  impugns  or  demands  a  renunciation  of 
reason,  is  intercepted  by  the  claim,  that,  if  there  is,  reason 
must  yield.  The  champion  of  the  rights  of  reason  will 
then  urge  that  the  help  and  warrant  of  reason  are  indis- 
pensable in  authenticating  a  revelation.  If  reason  must 
thus  unavoidably  be  allowed  to  judge  of  the  credentials 
of  revelation,  a  consistency  between  the  two  sources  and 
methods  of  our  knowledge  will  require  that  what  we 
are  called  to  accept  through  our  reason  shall  also  har- 
monize with  our  reason. 

The  scholastic  formula  advanced  by  theologians  to 
meet  the  conditions  of  the  case  is,  Fides  ante  intellectum; 
or,  Faith  must  precede  the  understanding  in  the  reception 
of  revealed  truths.  •  As  is  the  case  with  all  such  formulas 
on  test  questions,  so  in  this,  the  seeming  positiveness 
and  explicitness  of  the  statement  made  in  it  are  so  qual- 
ified the  moment  we  proceed  to  definitions,  as  to  throw 
us  back  into  the  very  vortex  of  debate.     The  formula, 


292  BELIEVING   THE   IMPOSSIBLE. 

indeed,  contains  within  its  own  terms  all  the  elements 
of  the  controversy  which  it  would  decide.  What  do  we 
mean  by  faith  ?  and  what  do  we  mean  by  the  under- 
standing ?  Does  faith  involve  an  exercise  of  the  under- 
standing, or  can  it  under  some  circumstances  dispense 
with  the  aid  and  resist  the  suggestions  of  the  under- 
standing ?  And  again,  What  is  meant  by  the  word  pre- 
cede in  the  formula  ?  Does  it  signify  merely  that  faith 
should  have  the  start  of  the  understanding,  leaving  that 
faculty  free  to  come  up  with  faith,  and  then  to  settle  all 
matters  of  joint  interest  with  it?  Or  does  it  signify 
that  faith  has  a  title  so  to  occupy  the  ground  that  it  may 
warn  off  the  understanding,  and  refuse  even  to  hold  a 
parley  with  it  ?  The  formula  may  be  construed  to  mean 
that  some  things  must  be  first  believed  in  order  that 
the  understanding  may  be  engaged  and  qualified  to  deal 
with  them ;  or  that  some  things  must  be  believed,  in 
order  that  the  understanding,  restrained  to  its  proper 
province,  may  not  require  sensible  or  demonstrative  evi- 
dence where  faith  itself,  when  its  suggestions  are  lis- 
tened to,  will  substitute  another  kind  of  evidence,  or 
supply  the  lack  of  evidence.  And,  once  more,  the  for- 
mula may  be  construed  as  meaning  that  we  must  be- 
lieve some  things  without  the  slightest  exercise  of  the 
understanding,  and  even  in  spite  of  its  protests.  We 
might  gather  a  curious  category  of  definitions  for  this 
formula  from  the  uses  it  has  been  made  to  serve.  There 
have  been  boasts  of  faith,  and  ventures  of  faith,  and  sub- 
missions of  faith,  and  sweet  and  gentle  triumphs  of  faith, 
all  of  which  have  made  the  various  exercises  of  man's 
believing  faculty  to  cover  a  richer  field  for  thought, 
for  story,  and  for  philosophical  discussion,  than  is  offered 
even  by  science,  with  all  its  wealth  of  interest.  The  old 
father  of  dogmatic  theology  meant  to  boast  of  his  docil- 
ity when  he  said  "  he  believed  some  things  because  they 
were  impossible."     That  boast  becomes  the  merest  com- 


FAITH   BEFORE   THE   UNDERSTANDING.  293 

monplace,  if  it  means  that  the  things  believed  are  im- 
possible to  men,  and  it  is  but  irreverent  folly  if  it  vaunts 
a  belief  in  things  that  are  impossible  with  God. 

But  what  becomes  of  the  supposed  authority  in  the 
formula,  Fides  ante  intellectum,  when,  instead  of  deciding 
all  the  issues  in  the  controversy  as  to  faith  and  reason, 
it  is  found  to  open  them  all  anew  ?  The  simple  truth  is, 
that  there  is  either  sophistry  or  disingenuousness  involved 
in  the  expected  advantage  to  be  gained  from  this  for- 
mula, whenever  the  motive  for  alleging  it  is  to  affront  or 
deprecate  or  humble  the  reason.  We  have  found  the 
formula,  Fides  ante  intellectam,  "  Faith  before  the  under- 
standing," used  for  a  purpose  of  which  we  should  not 
exaggerate  the  outrage  done  by  it  to  common  sense,  if 
we  interpret  it  as  sayfng  that  digestion  must  precede  eat- 
ing; that  we  must  incorporate  and  assimilate  the  nour- 
ishment to  be  drawn  from  the  food  of  religious  truth 
without  any  exercise  of  those  faculties,  any  help  from 
those  processes,  by  which  all  other  crude  food  passes  into 
sustenance.  And  when  the  theologian  thus  calls  upon 
us  to  deal  with  the  dogmas  which  he  proposes  to  us,  we 
may  be  sure  that  he  means  to  offer  us  some  indigestible 
food.  When  the  formula,  taken  in  the  sense  in  which 
popular  theology  is  thought  to  have  ratified  it,  is  made 
to  accompany  any  proposition  offered  to  our  faith  as  a 
doctrine  of  revelation,  it  is  well  for  us  always  to  pause 
and  make  sure  of  our  ground.  "  Once  admit,"  says  the 
pleader  for  faith  in  spite  of  reason,  —  "once  admit  that 
God  has  said  this  or  that,  and  then,  however  incompre- 
hensible or  confounding  it  may  be,  we  must  believe  it." 
Very  true.  Most  certainly  we  shall  believe  it ;  for  the 
admission  that  God  has  said  it,  would  be  the  highest 
possible  proof  of  it.  But  how  thin  is  the  veil  of  sojtk- 
istry  by  which  the  theologian  thinks  to  blind  us  to  the 
whole  amount  of  the  difference  between  what  God  says 
and  what  God  is  said  to  say  !  "  Once  admit  that  God  has 
25* 


294    THE  EFFORT  AND  THE  CONDITIONS  OF  FAITH. 

said  it"  &c.  Why,  the  whole  preliminary  process,  the 
toil  and  task  of  the  problem,  is  glibly  slipped  over  as  if  it 
were  the  merest  pastime  of  the  mind.  One,  at  least,  of 
the  conditions  for  securing  from  us  the  acknowledgment 
that  God  has  said  or  revealed  what  claims  our  belief  as 
from  him  is,  that  we  can  believe  it  of  him.  If  we  can- 
not believe  it  of  God,  we  cannot  admit  it  to  have  come 
from  him.  Every  truth  or  doctrine  or  message  which 
we  receive  as  from  God  is  accepted  either  by  an  intui- 
tive and  spontaneous  faith,  or  by  a  process  in  which 
faith  has  been  won  by  the  exercise  of  our  intellectual 
and  moral  faculties.  A  spontaneous  faith  by  no  means 
restricts  its  ready  reception  to  what  we  call  the  easiest, 
simplest  materials.  On  the  contrary,  it  loves  to  take  in 
some  of  the  loftiest  and  most  august  objects ;  it  prefers 
soaring  to  creeping,  and  the  more  sublime  and  awful 
and  overpowering  its  themes,  the  more  confiding  in  gen- 
eral is  its  trust;  But  when  faith  involves  a  process,  and, 
whether  upon  a  large  and  free,  or  upon  an  intricate  and 
narrow  theme,  finds  itself  teased  and  perplexed,  then  it 
has  an  alternative  before  it.  Either  its  confidence  must 
be  won  through  processes  which  the  reason  regards  as 
legitimate,  or  it  may  yield  what  looks  like  confidence, 
but  at  the  loss  or  sacrifice  of  the  quality  in  itself  which 
makes  it  a  divinely  trained  faculty  of  the  soul.  Even 
if  in  the  seclusion  of  a  deep  wilderness  a  being  of  seem- 
ingly celestial  nature  should  appear  to  us,  and  with  audi- 
ble voice  should  declare  a  message  as  from  God,  all  the 
inquisitiveness  and  strength  which  our  reasoning  faculty 
has  gained  by  all  previous  exercises  would  engage  upon 
the  more  or  less  deliberate  trial  of  the  question,  whether 
it  was  probable  that  the  messenger  and  the  message 
were  from  God.  We  should  bring  all  the  reasoning 
power  which  we  possessed  by  natural  endowment,  and 
all  the  practised  skill  and  caution  and  distrust  and  confi- 
dence which  we  had  acquired  in  its  use,  to  help  us  to  a 


THE   RATIFICATION   OF   FAITH.  295 

decision  of  the  understanding,  and  then  as  the  understand- 
ing pronounced,  we  should  believe  or  disbelieve.  Of 
course  the  decision  of  the  understanding  would  be  differ- 
ent in  different  persons,  because  the  range  and  vigor  and 
processes  of  the  understanding  faculty  are  different  in 
different  persons.  The  credulous,  the  superstitious,  the 
sceptical,  the  logical,  the  prejudiced,  the  candid,  the 
clear-headed,  the  wise,  and  the  well-informed,  might 
each  hold  a  different  opinion  about  the  supposed  heav- 
enly manifestation.  If  they  all  believed  it  to  be  a  heav- 
enly manifestation,  they  would  all  believe  the  message  ; 
but  whether  the  one  or  the  other  should  believe  or  dis- 
believe the  appearance  would  depend  upon  the  relations 
established  previously  between  his  faith  and  his  reason, 
and  upon  the  confidence  and  training  of  his  understand- 
ing. For  such  appearances  have  been  alleged  under 
various  circumstances,  and  they  have  been  believed  in 
and  discredited  under  various  combinations  of  these  cir- 
cumstances. The  history  of  the  beliefs  of  men  is  but  a 
history  of  the  relation  between  faith  in  its  spontaneous 
exercise,  and  the  various  modifications  of  its  exercise 
under  the  sluggishness  or  the  activity,  the  neglect  or  the 
culture,  the  true  adjustment  or  the  lawless  action,  of  the 
elements  of  the  understanding.  In  some  ages  and  places, 
and  by  some  persons,  that  seemingly  celestial  messenger 
would  have  been  received,  and  would  now  be  received, 
as  divine,  independently  of  the  tenor  of  his  message. 
The  marvel  would  satisfy  so  much  of  the  reasoning 
powers  as  were  brought  to  bear  upon  it,  and  would 
accredit  it  to  the  faith.  In  other  ages  and  places,  and 
by  other  persons,  that  appearance  would  have  been  dis- 
credited, and  would  now  be  discredited,  as  a  hallucina- 
tion, or  an  ocular  deception,  or  a  creature  of  the  woods. 
But  to  the  robust  and  healthful  and  well  trained  in  mind 
of  all  ages,  and  of  the  present  day,  the  tenor  of  the  mes- 
sage would  be  the  main  ground  for  a  decision  of  the 
reason  as  to  its  claims  to  faith. 


296  REASON   IN   MORALS    AND    IN   SCIENCE. 

Ought  not  the  plea  that  we  must  humiliate  and  pros- 
trate our  reason  as  a  condition  for  receiving  through 
faith  a  doctrine  of  revelation,  at  once  to  suggest  the  fear 
that  something  unreasonable  is  to  be  proposed  to  us  ? 
How  is  it  in  other  departments  of  our  intellectual,  and 
even  of  our  moral  training  ?  Ought  we  not  to  suspect, 
do  we  not  suspect,  the  temptation,  or  the  counsel,  or  the 
pleading  which  proposes  itself  to  us  by  first  flouting  at 
the  natural,  instinctive  promptings  of  our  own  inner 
being  ?  When  any  one  undertakes  to  seduce  from  vir- 
tue the  pure,  the  innocent,  the  unskilled  in  wickedness, 
he  will  begin  by  ridiculing  as  prudish  prejudices  those 
sentiments  of  the  heart  which  are  silently  protesting 
against  his  solicitations.  And  when  those  instinctive 
sentiments  have  been  trained  by  affectionate  and  health- 
ful care,  by  parental  love  and  wise  teaching,  the  be- 
guiler  insinuates  his  contempt  of  those  who,  instead  of 
indulging  their  own  freedom,  are  held  in  the  leading- 
strings  of  home  or  conventionalism.  Is  there  not  one 
point  of  similarity  between  this  flouting  at  moral  "  preju- 
dices," and  the  affronting  of  the  reason  of  those  whom 
God  addresses  as  reasonable  beings  ?  Do  we  find  that 
natural  science,  as  in  its  highest  range  and  its  widest 
ventures  it  trespasses  on  the  realm  of  religion,  requires  a 
prostration  of  our  reason  ?  An  attempt  is  often  made 
to  contrast  and  set  in  opposition  those  qualities  which 
are  respectively  needed  in  scientific  and  religious  inves- 
tigations. Humility,  simplicity,  docility,  and  candor  are 
represented  as  peculiarly  and  especially  requisite  in  the 
theologian,  and  the  implication  is  that  the  scientific  man 
may  dispense  with  the  fullest  exercise  of  such  qualities. 
But  let  the  scientific  man  dispense  with  them  in  any 
measure,  let  him  venture  to  disregard  the  least  sugges- 
tion from  them,  and  then  mark  how  the  world  will  esti- 
mate his  merits  or  the  value  of  his  labors.  Our  own 
professional  biases    shall   not    hinder  our  acknowledg- 


REASON  NOT  IMPAIRED  BY  A  FALL.        297 

ment  that  divines  will  not  wisely  challenge  a  compari- 
son on  this  score  between  themselves  and  natural  phi- 
losophers. Who,  among  the  humblest  and  most  docile 
and  most  candid  students  of  the  Revealed  Word,  —  and 
it  has  had  many  meek  and  lowly-minded  disciples,  — 
can  be  named  as  surpassing  Newton  in  those  graces  of 
soul  ?  But  it  is  positively  wicked  to  require  an  abase- 
ment of  the  reason  as  a  condition  for  the  exercise  of 
those  graces  which  are  the  ornaments  of  all  true  wisdom 
in  divine  or  human  science. 

But  it  is  said  that  our  reasoning  powers  have  been 
impaired  and  vitiated  by  our  descent  from  Adam  after 
his  fall.  Dr.  Pusey,  in  a  recent  sermon  opposing  views 
advanced  by  Mr.  Jowett  and  others,*  says  :  "  It  is  almost 
a  received  formula  on  the  evidences  of  the  Gospel,  that 
the  province  of  reason  is  antecedent  to  that  of  faith  ; 
that  we  are  on  grounds  of  reason  to  believe  in  revela- 
tion, in  other  words,  to  receive  faith,  and  then  on  the 
ground  of  faith  to  receive  its  contents,  which  are  not  to 
be  contrary  to  reason.  True,  as  is  urged,  since  reason 
is  a  gift  of  God,  it  will  not  conflict  with  his  other  gift, 
revelation  or  faith.  But  then,  what  reason  ?  Reason 
such  as  Adam  had  it  before  the  Fall,  unwarped  by  prej- 
udices, unswayed  by  pride,  undeafened  by  passions, 
unallured  by  self-idolizing,  unfettered  by  love  of  inde- 
pendence, master  of  itself  because  subdued  to  God,  en- 
lightened by  God,  a  mirror  of  the  mind  of  God,  reflect- 
ing his  image  and  likeness  after  which  it  was  created,  a 
finite  copy  of  the  perfections  of  the  Infinite  ?  Truly, 
no  one  would  demur  to  the  answer  of  such  an  oracle  as 
this.  A  work  of  God,  which  remained  in  harmony  With 
God,  must  be  in  harmony  with  every  other  creation  of 

*  Christian  Faith  and  the  Atonement.  Sermons  preached  before  the 
University  of  Oxford  in  reference  to  the  views  published  by  Mr.  Jowett  and 
others.  By  E.  B.  Pusey,  D.D.,  Rev.  T.  D.  Bernard,  M.  A.,  &c.,  &c.  Ox- 
ford and  London  :  J.  H.  Parker.     1856. 


298  THE   REASONING   AND   THE   BELIEVING   MAN. 

God,  for  both  would  be  the  finite  expressions  of  the  one 
archetype,  the  mind  of  God.  But  that  poor  blinded 
prisoner,  majestic  in  its  wreck,  bearing  still  the  linea- 
ments of  its  primeval  beauty  and  giant  might,  yet 
doomed,  until  it  be  set  free,  to  grind  in  the  mill  of  its 
prison-house,  and  make  sport  for  the  master  to  whom  it 
is  enslaved,  —  this,  which  cannot  guide  itself,  is  no 
guide  to   the   mind   of  God." 

The  title  to  the  sermon  from  which  this  extract  is 
taken  is  «  All  Faith  the  Gift  of  God."  Our  readers  will 
have  noticed  the  confusion  or  the  error  in  the  first  sen- 
tence of  the  paragraph.  The  writer  changes  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  belief,  as  defining  the  conviction  attained 
by  reason  and  testimony  of  the  credibility  of  a  revela- 
tion, into  another  meaning,  as  a  miraculous  gift  bestowed 
by  God.  But  from  those  grounds  and  processes  of  rea- 
son by  which  we  reach  a  faith  in  an  alleged  revelation, 
is  it  possible  for  him  to  exclude  all  regard  to  the  con- 
tents and  substance  of  the  message  ?  And  again,  unless 
we  mean  to  allow  in  this  transcendent  matter  one  start- 
ling exception  to  the  wise  law  of  adaptation  which  we 
ascribe  to  God's  workings,  we  must  claim  that  a  mes- 
sage addressed  to  an  impaired  reason  must  be  suited  all 
the  more  skilfully  and  mercifully  to  the  infirmities  of  that 
reason.  It  is  bad  enough  to  have  to  suffer,  for  the  guilt 
of  another,  the  inheritance  of  a  crippled  and  diseased 
reason  ;  but  to  have  what  is  left  to  us  of  its  original 
functions  baffled  and  ridiculed,  is  to  allow  us  but  a  very 
questionable  remnant  of  a  divine  endowment. 

We  are  not  going  any  farther  into  the  metaphysics  or 
even  into  the  polemics  of  this  dreary  controversy.  For 
ourselves,  we  cannot  accord  with  a  sentiment  which  we 
have  somewhere  seen  expressed,  that  "  the  glory  of  the 
believing  man  consists  in  the  prostration  of  the  reason- 
ing man."  We  know  of  no  doctrine  or  precept  or 
promise  or  declaration  in  revelation  which   throws  con- 


ROMANISM  AND   PROTESTANTISM   ON  FAITH.  299 

tempt  on  human  reason,  or  scorns  its  aid,  or  does  other- 
wise than  appeal  to  it  and  invite  its  companionship  as 
far  as  it  can  go.  That  some  truths  in  revelation  baffle 
our  reason,  exceed  its  grasp,  and  lift  it  into  realms  too 
rare  and  dizzy  for  its  breath  and  thought,  is  a  lesson 
with  which  we  started  in  our  childhood,  and  are  rejoiced 
to  learn  anew  every  day  that  we  live.  We  do  not  care 
to  be  trifled  with  by  theologians,  when,  for  the  purpose 
of  confusing  us,  they  confound  the  meaning  of  the  word 
reason  with  the  meaning  of  the  word  conceit.  Reason 
is  one  thing ;  the  pride  of  reason  is  quite  another  thing. 
Our  Creator  and  Disposer  has  happily  —  we  ought  rath- 
er to  say,  fearfully —  given  us  abundant  means  for  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  just,  the  true,  and  the  safe 
exercises  of  reason  in  its  healthful  action,  and  that  pain- 
fully large  variety  of  its  workings  when  impaired  by 
disease,  by  prejudice,  by  vice,  or  any  other  limitation  or 
perversion.  Nor  is  there  any  very  profound  mystery  in- 
volved in  the  familiar  truth  that  humility  and  docility, 
and  self-distrust  and  confidence  in  the  great  Source  of 
reason,  with  a  filial  trust  and  a  waiting  submission,  re- 
fine and  strengthen  the  soul's  high  faculty.  True  faith 
exalts  human  reason,  instead  of  humiliating  it. 

Every  human  being  who  has  intelligently  received  the 
Christian  religion  has  accepted  it  either  through  a  pro- 
cess of  his  own  reason,  or  through  his  confidence  in  the 
reasoning  processes  of  others  who  have  proposed  that 
religion  to  his  belief.  Protestantism  represents  the  ap- 
plication of  the  former  of  these  conditions,  —  the  trial 
of  one's  creed  by  his  own  private  reason  or  judgment. 
Romanism  represents  the  application  of  the  latter  con- 
dition, —  that  of  reliance  upon  the  supposed  ability  and 
conscientiousness  of  others  in  establishing  reasonable 
grounds  for  the  creed  which  it  offers.  When  the  contro- 
versy between  the  two  parties  is  narrowed  down  to  the 
essential  issue  of  the  whole  strife,  it  is  reduced  to  this 


300  ROMANISM  AND   PROTESTANTISM  ON  FAITH. 

question, — whether  the  rule  of  faith  and  life  for  a  Chris- 
tian allows  him  to  ratify  it  to  his  own  reason  through  a 
proper  use  of  the  Scriptures  and  all  the  means  which 
throw  light  upon  them ;  or  whether  he  must  rely  upon 
authority,  upon  an  ecclesiastical  authority,  which  is  sup- 
posed to  have  at  once  relieved  him  of  the  responsibility 
of  private  judgment,  and  to  have  secured  for  him  some- 
thing more  sure  than  such  judgment,  in  the  large  major- 
ity of  cases,  could  possibly  attain.  Those  who  yield  to 
such  authority  may  still  carry  on  between  themselves  a 
half-amicable,  half-hostile  skirmish,  like  that  between 
the  Romanists  and  the  Puseyites.  Their  limited  con- 
troversy centres  upon  the  tests  which  the  individual  rea- 
son, surrendered  up  to  church  authority,  still  insists  upon 
applying  to  the  historical  credentials  of  that  authority, 
to  the  subjects  and  conditions  and  measurements  of  its 
lawful  exercise,  to  the  range  of  its  prerogative,  and  to  the 
exponent  of  it  in  pope,  bishops,  councils,  or  convoca- 
tions. Even  within  this  limited  department  of  the  whole 
issue  between  authority  and  liberty,  there  is  material 
enough,  not  only  for  an  open  controversy  between  Ro- 
manists and  Protestant  Episcopalians,  but  also  for  a 
sharp  strife  between  the  Transmontane  and  the  Cis- 
alpine Romanists,  and  between  the  High- Church  and 
the  Low- Church  Episcopalians.  To  dispose  of  all  these 
subordinate  contentions  requires  a  faculty  like  that  which 
one  needs  in  sounding  the  unfathomed  depths  of  the 
canon  law.  Those  who  forego  some  measure  of  their 
own  liberty  thus  differ  as  to  the  terms  and  limitations  of 
that  ecclesiastical  submission  which  they  yield  to  the 
principle  of  authority.  Protestants,  whom  consistency 
commits  to  an  entire  rejection  of  such  authority,  have 
found  quite  as  wide  a  field  for  their  own  strifes  in  set- 
tling the  terms  and  limitations  for  the  exercise  of  private 
reason  in  matters  of  faith.  Some  forms  of  Protestant- 
ism, after  battering  the  outside  defences  of  Romanism, 


SCRIPTURE   APPEALS    TO   REASON.  301 

have  removed  its  engines  and  weapons  into  their  own 
peculiar  citadel.  Protestantism  has  but  slowly  and  re- 
luctantly come  to  confront  the  practical  results  of  its 
own  first  principles.  It  has  endeavored  to  arrest  the 
action  of  reason  at  various  stages  of  its  inquisitive  pro- 
cesses with  matters  of  faith.  The  Scriptures  do  not 
contain  a  single  sentence  implying  that  their  lessons  are 
offered  to  a  reason  impaired  by  the  Fall.  They  do  affirm 
that  pride,  and  hardness  of  heart,  and  prejudice,  and  a 
love  of  error  and  sin  in  individuals  gathered  in  a  com- 
mon crowd,  make  some  Scripture  truths  offensive  and 
incredible  to  them.  But  these  offensive  and  incredible 
truths  are  not  what  the  theologian  calls  the  mysteries 
of  faith,  they  are  generally  matters  of  plain  common- 
sense,  morality,  and  wisdom.  Individuals  in  the  same 
crowd  would  receive  gladly  the  same  truths,  not  by  any 
prostration  of  their  reason,  but  through  a  healthful  con- 
dition of  their  hearts.  Those  Scriptures  represent  God 
as  inviting  men  to  "reason  together"  with  him;  they 
put  from  him  to  us  the  fair  question,  "Are  not  my  ways 
equal  ? "  they  "  speak  as  to  wise  men,"  and  bid  us 
"  judge  "  what  they  say ;  they  ask,  "  Why  even  of  your- 
selves judge  ye  not  what  is  right  ?  "  If  Scripture  truths 
were  addressed  to  an  impaired  reason,  they  would  be 
accommodated  to  its  infirmities  ;  at  any  rate,  they  would 
give  us  warning  to  put  away  the  poor  remnant  of  our 
reason,  instead  of  inviting  and  appealing  to  its  exercise. 
The  astronomer  gives  us  fair  notice  that,  when  he  takes 
us  under  his  tuition,  he  expects  us  to  begin  with  a  com- 
plete inversion  of  our  supposed  position  as  regards  the 
heavens.  We  must  stand  upon  our  heads  instead  of 
upon  our  feet ;  the  east  must  become  west  with  us,  our 
right  hands  must  become  our  left  hands,  and  we  must 
set  the  whole  skies  on  a  countermarch  that  a  retrograde 
motion  may  show  for  a  progressive  motion,  as  it  really 
is.  It  would  have  been  easy  for  revelation  to  proclaim 
26 


802  CONDITIONS   OF   FAITH. 

the  same  condition,  and  just  as  high  science  constantly 
reminds  us  that  we  must  take  the  testimony  of  our 
senses  as  the  opposite  of  the  truth,  so  might  faith  have 
required  us  to  interpret  the  suggestions  of  reason  by 
contraries.     But  it  has  not  required  this. 

The  great  question  to  which  all  the  thoughts  and  in- 
quiries and  controversies  of  long  Christian  ages  have 
been  pointing  is  this :  Whether  there  is  within  our 
reach  and  use  a  religion  which  will  meet  the  wants  of 
devout,  earnest,  and  thinking  persons,  —  a  religion  which 
we  can  refer  to  the  Supreme  Father  as  its  Divine  Source 
and  Sanction,  —  a  religion  which  in  the  highest  and  most 
honest  exercise  of  our  own  faculties  we  can  approve, 
and  to  which  we  can  yield  our  hearts  and  lives  with 
manifest  evidences  of  benefit  and  sanctification  ?  The 
overwhelming  evidence  that  the  Christian  world  is  in 
possession  of  such  a  religion  must  be  supposed  to  be 
admitted,  not  only  by  all  believers,  but  even  by  some 
unbelievers ;  for  the  candid  and  wise  of  the  latter  class 
would  not  venture  to  dispute  what  millions  have  testi- 
fied to  as  a  matter  of  personal  experience.  But  what 
we  wish  to  mark  and  to  explain  is  the  fact  that  manj^ 
candid  and  wise  unbelievers,  who  will  allow  the  sincerity 
and  the  sanctification  of  others  in  and  by  their  own 
faith,  cannot  of  themselves  accept  that  faith  under  the 
conditions  by  which  it  is  offered  to  them.  So  strong  is 
the  natural  need  and  craving  of  human  beings  for  the 
comfort  and  strength  of  religion,  that,  as  experience  has 
fully  proved,  in  lack  of  a  religion  possessing  all  the  at- 
tractions just  mentioned,  most  men  will  accept  a  relig- 
ion that  fails  in  one  or  more  points  of  that  high  stand- 
ard. Men  have  been  found  able  to  believe  religions, 
and  some  forms  of  the  Christian  religion,  which  did  not 
present  to  them  lofty  and  generous  views  of  God,  which 
would  not  commend  themselves  to  the  sober  inquiring 
processes  of  the  mind,  or  touch  the  deeper  affections  of 


DEFECTIONS   FROM   UNITARIANISM.  303 

the  human  heart,  or  have  a  purifying  and  exalting  effect 
upon  the  life.  Religions  and  forms  of  religion  lacking 
one  or  even  all  of  these  qualities,  have  engaged  the  in- 
tensest  faith  of  human  beings.  By  some  overruling 
influence  which  has  made  sincerity  of  soul  to  compen- 
sate for  heathen  superstitions  and  a  grovelling  creed, 
some  power  of  devotion,  some  impulse  of  virtue,  some 
nutriment  of  piety,  has  come  from  the  very  lowest  idol- 
atries, from  the  meanest  objects  to  which  the  soul  has 
clung.  But  as  mind  and  heart  work  their  way  out  of 
these  delusions  through  the  impulses  of  a  purer  and  a 
nobler  faith,  the  religious  instinct  of  man  is  educated, 
and  is  made  to  apply  higher  and  more  scrutinizing  tests 
to  what  is  offered  to  it  as  a  divine  religion. 

We  wish  to  illustrate  our  own  views  upon  the  relations 
between  Reason  and  Faith  as  they  have  been  developed 
in  the  controversy  of  which  we  have  been  treating.  It  will 
be  found  that  Orthodoxy,  assuming  the  championship  of 
the  principles  of  Faith,  has  denied  the  full  prerogative 
which  Unitarianism  claims  for  Reason  in  the  study  and 
interpretation  of  revealed  religion.  Orthodoxy  says  that 
Unitarianism  has  been  found  insufficient  to  satisfy  the 
heart,  to  feed  the  life  of  piety,  and  has  been  renounced 
on  that  account  by  some  of  its  disciples.  Unitarianism 
asserts  that  Orthodoxy  insults  the  reason,  and  has  been 
abandoned  on  that  account  by  multitudes  of  intelligent 
persons  who  once  accepted  it. 

It  has  never  fallen  within  our  personal  experience  to 
know  a  single  man  or  woman  of  fair  intelligence  and 
true  Christian  culture  who,  having  in  the  full  maturity 
of  life  received  the  essential  and  characteristic  views  of 
Unitarian  Christianity,  understandingly,  devoutly,  con- 
sistently, and  in  practical  fidelity  to  them,  has  renounced 
them  for  any  of  the  forms  of  Orthodoxy.  If  any  such 
case  were  brought  to  our  notice,  we  should  venture  large- 
ly upon  the  risk  of  being  pronounced  a  bigot  in  our  ob- 


304  DEFECTIONS   FROM   UNITARIANISM. 

stinacy  of  Unitarianism,  before  we  would  yield  to  the 
show  of  evidence  that  all  the  conditions  thus  specified 
had  been  fulfilled.  We  should  ask  full  assurance  that 
our  views  of  the  Gospel  had  once  been  thoroughly  un- 
derstood, heartily  believed,  and  loyally  honored  in  the 
training  of  the  character  and  the  conduct  of  the  life. 
We  should  require  proof  likewise,  that,  since  Unitarian 
views  have  been  compelled  to  assert  themselves  against 
a  considerable  amount  of  prejudice  and  popular  opposi- 
tion, and  against  a  prevailing  notion  that  they  are  un- 
scriptural,  a  professed  disciple  of  them  should  have  known 
something  of  the  long  controversy  in  which  they  have 
been  involved.  We  should  ask  evidence  that  he  had 
been  a  Unitarian' from  personal  study  and  conviction; 
that  he  had  been  able  to  vindicate  his  faith  from  Scrip- 
ture text  and  from  Church  history.  Then  we  should  be 
exceedingly  inquisitive  as  to  the  occasion,  the  reasons, 
and  the  method  of  his  conversion.  If  he  made  large  ac- 
count of  his  feelings  or  his  heart,  as  the  medium  of  his 
conversion,  we  should  be  prompted  to  probe  him  as  thor- 
oughly as  possible.  There  are  piques,  and  passions,  and 
disappointments,  and  partialities ;  there  are  fancies,  and 
there  are  morbid  and  despondent  sentiments,  which  may 
have  great  influence  in  such  cases.  Now  we  do  not  say 
there  never  has  been  an  instance  in  which  a  renunciation 
of  Unitarianism  for  Orthodoxy  would  bear  all  these 
tests.  We  say  only,  that  we  have  never  personally 
known   such   a  case. 

We  are  fully  aware  of  the  strength  of  the  assertion  we 
have  made,  and  we  have  weighed  every  word  in  which 
we  have  uttered  it.  We  have  done  more.  We  have 
sat  down  in  deep  and  silent  reverie  to  recall  and  sum- 
mon before  us,  not  without  the  beating  of  some  sad 
memories  in  the  chambers  of  the  heart,  every  friend,  ac- 
quaintance, and  traditionary  associate  in  the  pure  Uni- 
tarian faith,  and  every  one  who  has  been  the  subject  of 


DEFECTIONS   FROM   UNITAltlANISM.  305 

a  religious  biography,  who  might  be  said  to  have  real- 
ized the  kind  of  conversion  to  which  we  have  referred. 
We  find  our  assertion  will  stand  the  test  of  such  a  trial. 
Even  the  little  fellowship  of  acknowledged  modern  Uni- 
tarians has  seemingly  suffered  much  from  defections. 
Our  opponents  have  loved  to  call  it  the  half-way  house 
to  infidelity.  It  has  apparently  been  so  to  some  who 
seemed  to  find  in  what  they  took  to  be  Unitarianism  a 
temporary  delay  in  their  course  of  sceptical  experience, 
the  first  impulse  in  which  they  derived  from  Orthodoxy. 
We  have  never,  either  here  or  in  Europe,  furnished  the 
Roman  Church  with  a  priest  from  one  of  our  pulpits, 
but  a  few  men  and  women  have  gone  from  our  com- 
munion to  her  altar-rails.  The  pages  of  our  own  jour- 
nal once  had  a  contributor,  who,  having  used  his  strong 
lance  both  for  and  against  most  of  the  creeds  in  heaven 
and  on  earth,  including  our  own,  is  now  a  Roman 
knight.  But  even  now,  as  formerly,  is  the  question 
asked  concerning  him,  whether  he  helps  or  harms  the 
religious  cause  which,  for  the  time  being,  he  advo- 
cates with  such  a  marvellous  versatility  in  logic  and 
philosophy. 

Two  or  three  once  zealous  Unitarian  laborers,  the 
promoters  of  benevolent  and  even  sectarian  schemes 
among  us,  are  now  in  other  fellowships.  Either  they 
have  more  of  some  qualities,  or  less  of  others,  than 
were  compounded  and  proportioned  in  their  former  as- 
sociates. Either  they  desired  a  sympathy  which  they 
did  not  find,  or  they  offered  a  sympathy  which  was  not 
accepted,  and  they  did  wisely  to  go  and  seek  what  they 
needed  where  they  could  find  it,  and  to  go  and  exercise 
what  they  had  where  it  would  be  appreciated.  Young 
girls,  too,  there  have  been  and  are,  —  and  unless  there 
is  more  fidelity  in  our  churches  and  families  in  the 
work  of  robust  religious  training  for  the  minds  and  souls 
of  the  young,  there  will  be  many  more  of  that  most 
26* 


306  RELIGION   OF   THOUGHT   AND   FEELING. 

interesting  class  in  our  community  to  imitate  the  catch- 
ing example,  —  who  have  found  the  faith,  or  rather 
we  ought  to  say,  the  mode  of  worship  and  the  creed  of 
their  parents,  ineffective  for  their  feelings.  Our  com- 
munion, though  small,  has  been  free,  and  we  have  done 
so  little  in  the  work  of  indoctrinating  a  new  generation, 
that  we  have  no  right  to  suppose  that  even  half  of  those 
who  are  nominally  with  us  have  really  any  decided 
faith.  As  the  generation  of  noble  Christian  matrons 
who  trained  their  minds  and  souls  by  a  religion  which 
fed  the  thoughts  as  well  as  the  feelings  has  been  vanish- 
ing year  by  year,  we  have  had  no  reason  to  expect  their 
full-formed,  consistent,  and  abiding  religious  convic- 
tions in  those  of  their  granddaughters  who  leave  out 
the  thought,  and  have  regard  only  to  the  feeling,  which 
enters  into  a  living  and  earnest  Christian  piety.  When 
these  young  persons  of  either  sex  profess  to  have  found 
in  some  other  communion  what  they  did  not  find  in  our 
own,  a  kindly  suggestion  may  prompt  them  to  ask,  if 
they  did  not  take  ivith  them  to  their  new  religious  refuge 
some  element  of  a  true  religious  life  which  they  did  not 
bring  with  them  to  our  communion.  Unitarian  views 
may  not  have  been  congenial  with  their  feelings,  because 
their  feelings  were  not  then  brought  into  sympathy 
with  religion  in  any  form.  It  may  have  been  an  empty 
frivolity,  a  light-headed  indifference,  or  a  lack  of  such 
thought  and  mental  discipline  as  an  intelligent  faith  re- 
quires of  its  disciples,  or  it  may  have  been  a  vacuum  of 
heart,  or  a  neglect  of  the  law  of  practical  Christian  use- 
fulness, which  chilled  the  growth  of  piety.  It  may  per- 
haps be  said  that  a  minister  is  bound  to  engage  the  feel- 
ings of  all  who  are  under  his  religious  care,  and  that  he 
will  rouse  in  the  young  and  the  susceptible  those  emo- 
tions which  kindle  the  religious  life,  if  he  really  preaches 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  We  can  only  reply,  that  it  is 
easier  to  say  this  than  to  make  it  good.     There  may  be 


CONVERSIONS  TO   UNITAKIANISM.  307 

a  show  of  religious  sensibility,  and  a  manifestation  of 
religious  interest,  produced  under  other  ministrations 
of  doctrine,  which  we  may  regard  as  debilitating  or 
un healthful  to  the  spirit,  or  as  a  poor  substitute  for 
some  gentle  grace  of  character,  or  some  robust  virtue 
in  the  life.  At  any  rate,  if  a  minister  tries  to  preach 
the  truth,  those  who  listen  should  try  to  receive  it  by 
some  engagedness  of  their  own  feelings.  Then,  if  they 
fail  of  conviction,  and  satisfaction,  and  true  religious 
impulse,  they  may  offer  their  feelings  to  some  different 
ritual  or  doctrine.  When  any  one,  man  or  woman, 
young  or  old,  speaks  of  having  been  converted,  he  should 
remember  that  the  word  implies  a  former  as  well  as  a 
present  belief,  a  conversion  from  something  as  well  as  to 
something.  If  this  suggestion  should  remind  some  per- 
sons that  they  held  no  real  religious  convictions,  and 
had  no  earnestness  or  assurance  of  faith  before  they  ex- 
perienced their  change,  charity  will  forbid  their  speaking 
of  themselves  as  converts. 

Of  course,  as  it  would  be  invidious  in  us  to  specify, 
in  each  case  of  seeming  dissatisfaction  with  Unita- 
rian views,  the  defect  or  the  bias  or  the  motive  or  the 
reason  which  would  explain  it  without  the  least  dis- 
credit to  those  views,  so  it  may  appear  like  arrogance  in 
us  to  imply  that  all  defections  from  our  communion 
may  be  explained  by  some  process  not  conclusive  of  the 
truth  in  any  such  case.  But  if  it  be  arrogance,  we  can- 
not but  indulge  it.  Every  case  within  our  own  knowl- 
edge yields  to  an  explanation  which  leaves  our  confi- 
dence in  the  Scriptural  truth,  the  practical  power,  and 
the  sufficiency  of  Unitarian  views,  all  untouched.  And 
if  that  confidence  needed  to  be  rallied  and  sustained 
under  any  shock  which  it  receives,  the  conversions  to  Uni- 
tarianism,  the  manifold  tokens  of  tendencies  to  it,  and 
the  constant  and  amazing  assertion  of  its  principles  by 
those  who  have  been  trained  in  all  other  Christian  com- 


308  PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIANITY. 

m unions,  would  more  than  reinstate  our  confidence. 
Our  opponents  must  not  suppose  us  to  be  mere  jot  and 
tittle  sectarians  in  such  a  way  as  to  claim  every  nom- 
inally Orthodox  man  who  accepts  our  interpretation  of 
a  proof  text,  or  our  principles  of  Scripture  criticism,  or 
joins  with  us  in  a  slight  upon  the  offensive  peculiarities 
and  the  short-comings  of  the  popular  forms  of  religion. 
As  we  are  revising  these  pages,  we  have  chanced  to  read 
the  criticisms  in  several  Orthodox  pages  upon  one  of  the 
most  striking  features  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  new  Antislavery 
novel,  a  book  now  in  the  hands  of  a  hundred  thousand 
readers.  Those  characteristic  features  of  Orthodox  faith 
and  piety  which  have  always  been  most  offensive  to 
Unitarians  receive  from  her  pen  a  most  scorching  de- 
lineation. And  so  her  critics  visit  upon  her  in  return 
the  sharpest  censures.  She  is  accused  of  "  caricaturing 
Orthodoxy  just  as  the  Unitarians  do."  We  leave  her 
to  the  tormentors.  But  we  gather  up  the  "  concessions 
of  Trinitarians,"  the  heresies  of  commentators,  the  bold 
utterances  of  men  who  have  signed  the  Thirty-Nine 
Articles,  and  the  merciless  castigations  visited  upon 
"  Presbyterian  ministers  and  elders "  by  the  pen  of  a 
female  Beecher,  and  we  say  they  all  mean  something. 
They  mean  just  this,  and  something  more  too,  —  that 
Orthodoxy  is  not  the  ultimatum  of  Christian  faith  for  this 
world.  We  do  not  say  that  Unitarianism  holds  that 
honored  place,  but  we  have  a  strong  conviction  that 
Unitarianism,  or  rather  the  excellent  thing  which  we 
mean  by  the  word,  and  which  is  infinitely  better  than 
an  ism,  is  in  near  proximity  to  it. 

The  true  and  thoroughly  trained  and  thoroughly  con- 
vinced Unitarian  holds  that  his  view  of  the  Gospel  is 
identical  with  the  primitive  Christianity  of  Christ  and 
his  Apostles.  The  New  Testament  is  radiant  to  him 
with  that  sublime  and  simple  system  of  Divine  Truth, 
the  heighth  and  the  depth  of  which  transcend  the  power 


EARLY   CORRUPTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  309 

of  his  reason,  and  often  confound  the  searchings  of 
his  understanding,  but  do  no  violence  to  the  intuitions 
or  the  suggestions  of  his  reason.  The  deep-sea  plum- 
met of  the  mariner  fails  to  find  soundings  on  the  mid- 
ocean,  not  because  it  is  not  perfectly  adapted  to  its 
uses,  but  because  its  capacity  is  exceeded  by  the  pro- 
fundity into  which  it  sinks.  If  there  be  shoals  or  dan- 
gerous rocks  rising  even  in  the  deepest  waters,  the  plum- 
met is  as  good  for  its  uses  there  as  on  the  coasts.  But 
the  fact  that  the  plummet  finds  no  bottom  on  the  ocean 
assures  the  confidence  of  the  mariner  in  sailing  without 
a  continual  recourse  to  it.  So  is  it  with  reason  when 
engaged  upon  the  truths  of  revelation.  Reason  cannot 
sound  their  depths  because  they  exceed  its  capacity;  but 
so  far  as  it  can  exercise  its  functions,  it  meets  with  no 
obstruction,  no  embarrassment.  The  system  of  Gospel 
truths  invites  the  admiring  homage  of  human  reason, 
and  casts  no  reproach  and  visits  no  discomfiture  upon 
it.  Yet  more,  Unitarianism  insists  that  it  was  this  very 
simplicity  of  the  Gospel,  this  full  accordance  of  its  truths 
with  reason,  that  led  to  its  corruption.  Theologians  and 
philosophers,  impatient  of  that  naked  simplicity  which 
made  it  level  to  the  apprehension  and  consistent  with 
the  understanding  of  the  common  mind,  at  once  tried 
their  wits  upon  it.  All  manner  of  complications  of 
theory  and  fancy,  of  creed  and  symbolism,  were  intro- 
duced into  the  faith  of  Christendom.  Among  all  the 
early  heresies,  so  called,  it  is  evident  that  the  simple 
Gospel  itself  was  the  most  odious  and  unpopular  heresy. 
How  transparently  clear  upon  the  pages  of  ecclesiastical 
history  is  the  evidence,  that,  from  the  very  year  in  which 
the  Gospel  engaged  the  interest  of  speculative  minds, 
it  yielded  its  severe  and  easily  apprehended  truths  to 
the  cunning  processes  of  philosophy  !  The  pages  of 
Neander  are  strewn  all  over  with  sentences  of  like  tenor 
with  the  following :  "  In  Irena3us  [himself  a  disciple  of 


310  RETRACING    OF   ERRORS. 

a  disciple  of  St.  John]  the  sufferings  of  Christ  are  repre- 
sented as  having  a  necessary  connection  with  the  right- 
ful deliverance  of  man  from  the  power  of  Satan.  The 
Divine  justice  is  here  displayed,  in  allowing  even  Satan 
to  have  his  due.  Of  satisfaction  done  by  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  to  the  Divine  justice,  as  yet  not  the  slightest 
mention  is  to  be  found;  but  doubtless  there  is  lying  at 
bottom  the  idea  of  a  perfect  fulfilment  of  the  law  by 
Christ,- — of  his  perfect  obedience  to  the  holiness  of  God 
in  its  claims  to  satisfaction  due  to  it  from  mankind."* 
Such  sentences  intimate  to  us  the  steps  in  the  construc- 
tive processes  of  dogmatic  theology,  the  abstruse  and 
fanciful  and  often  the  grotesque  devices  of  men's  minds 
to  rid  themselves  of  "  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ." 
Whole  ages  were  passed  in  these  constructive  processes 
of  theology.  When  we  realize  the  extent  and  the  sway 
of  that  empire  which  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  once 
had  over  the  minds  of  men,  we  can  understand  how  a 
theology  compounded  of  the  elements  of  pure  Christian 
faith  and  the  devices  of  human  ingenuity  should  have 
taken  a  strong  hold  of  Christendom.  Nor  is  it  strange 
that  processes  which  had  for  long  ages  been  working  to 
embarrass  and  complicate  our  faith  should  require  time 
and  struggle  and  controversy  for  their  detection  and  re- 
jection. While  the  Unitarian  traces  out  the  visible 
stages  of  the  corruption  of  primitive  Christianity,  he 
learns  to  expect  just  such  a  method  for  the  restoration 
of  it  as  the  experiences  of  his  own  brotherhood  of  be- 
lievers have  verified.  He  is  persuaded  that  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  mind  from  the  bondage  of  theological  sys- 
tems and  formulas,  by  an  intelligent  and  devout  study 
of  the  New  Testament,  is  the  real  explanation  of  the 
facts  attending  the  appearance  of  what  are  called  Lib- 
eral  views    of    Christianity,    wherever   they    have  been 


*  Torrey's  Neander,  I.  p.  642. 


THE  PROCESSES  OF  REFORMATION.        311 

reasserted.  Those  who  are  still  in  bondage,  excellent 
and  honored  and  intelligent  Christians,  as  many  of  them 
are,  may  lengthen  their  faces,  and  say  in  lugubrious 
tones  that  Unitarianism  is  a  fatal  heresy,  into  which 
men  and  women  are  led  by  the  pride  of  reason  and  by  a 
corrupt  human  heart.  But  there  are  two  sides  to  this 
argument,  and  the  Unitarian  side,  so  far  from  yielding 
to  the  defeat  which  is  said  to  have  been  visited  upon  it. 
marks  a  steady  recognition  and  triumph  of  its  principles. 
Let  us  say  again,  as  we  said  in  opening  the  series  of 
papers  which  we  are  bringing  to  a  close,  that  we  are  not 
set  upon  the  use  of  the  word  Unitarianism,  nor  vindicat- 
ing all  that  has  passed  under  the  name.  "We  use  the 
term  to  designate  a  more  or  less  homogeneous  and  defi- 
nite system  of  opinions  about  Christianity,  which  are  in 
open  hostility  to  the  Athanasian,  the  Augustinian,  and 
the  Calvinistic  construction  of  the  Gospel. 

The  processes  of  the  Reformation  have  worked  ac- 
cording to  a  method  which  common  sense  and  fair  intel- 
ligence can  observe  to  have  been  conformed  to  the  nat- 
ural constitution  of  things.  As  ages  had  wrought  in 
the  work  of  ecclesiastical  usurpation,  through  a  proud 
hierarchy,  through  an  ingenious  system  of  spiritual  des- 
potism, through  a  ritual,  a  calendar  of  fasts  and  festivals, 
a  casuistical  code,  and  through  a  patient  moulding  of 
feudal  institutions  and  political  relations  into  a  conform- 
ity with  its  own  ghostly  rule,  so  the  Reformation  could 
advance  only  by  undoing  the  work  of  Romanism  in  all 
these  specific  devices.  Every  imperfect  element  in  the 
Reformation,  as  at  present  it  shows  itself  to  us,  and  all 
the  lingering  lookings-back  of  prelatists,  ritualists,  and 
Puseyites  to  the  old,  forsaken,  and  dishonored  Church  of 
Rome,  are  tokens  that  a  strife  for  independence  has  not 
yet  quite  satisfied  itself  that  it  had  no  quality  of  a  rebel- 
lion against  lawful  rule.  The  processes  by  which  a  pure, 
a  liberal,  and  a  rational  view  of  the   Gospel  has  been 


312  UNITARIAN  DEVELOPMENT. 

developed,  answer  at  every  point  to  those  which  led  on 
the  Reformation.  Had  we  time  and  space,  we  could 
easily  illustrate  the  parallel. 

Let  it  be  allowed  to  us  "  to  glory  "  a  little,  in  boasting 
of  what  we  regard  as  the  glory  of  our  own  views  of  Chris- 
tian truth.  If  what  we  are  about  to  say  in  illustration 
of  our  theme,  of  the  relations  between  reason  and  faith, 
shall  seem  to  some  to  be  rather  a  vain  offering  to  our 
own  conceit,  we  will  still  ask  them  to  bear  with  us,  for 
we  have  to  bear  much  from  them.  Considering  that  the 
Orthodox  so  exalt  themselves  above  us  for  their  humil- 
ity and  docility  in  faith,  for  their  exclusive  experience  of 
the  life  of  piety,  and  their  perfect  assurance  that  they 
have  the  seal  of  the  covenant,  they  can  well  yield  to  us 
the  poor  indulgence  of  allowing  us  to  justify,  if  we  can, 
our  "  pride  of  reason."  We  say  then,  that  when  a  free 
and  intelligent  mind,  and  a  heart  devoutly  engaged  in 
the  search  for  a  vigorous  and  practical  and  satisfying 
faith,  combine  their  efforts  in  a  healthful  and  just  pro- 
portion, respecting  each  other's  rights,  and  supplying 
each  other's  weaknesses,  the  study  of  the  Bible  will  re- 
sult in,  or  tend  towards,  Unitarianism.  This  we  believe 
as  we  believe  in  our  own  existence.  An  unbiased  and 
unfettered  mind,  intelligent,  inquisitive,  and  well-trained, 
with  a  devout  and  earnest  longing  of  the  heart  to  know 
the  will  of  God,  are  the  conditions  which,  united,  are 
favorable  to  the  adoption  of  Unitarian  views,  and  all  the 
world  over,  in  all  time,  have  developed  those  views  from 
the  Bible.  The  fact  has  been  verified  under  a  great  va- 
riety of  circumstances.  The  strongest  prejudices  of  train- 
ing, association,  and  interest  have  yielded  in  evidence 
of  it.  A  combination,  a  fair  and  just  combination,  of 
the  elements  of  intelligence  and  piety,  an  harmonious 
adjustment  of  the  relations  of  reason  and  faith,  will  issue 
in  Liberal  Christianity.  Let  mind  and  heart  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  contents  of  the  New  Testament,  and 


HUMILIATION   OF    THE    REASON.  313 

let  the  proper  functions  of  the  understanding  and  the 
spirit  engage  harmoniously  in  the  work,  and  "  Unitarian 
tendencies"   will  be    developed   even  from   Orthodoxy. 
Let  there  be  an  excess  or  a  deficiency  in  the  exercise  of 
either  of  the  functions  of  either  of  those  joint  searchers 
in  the  field  of  Christian  truth,  let  the  felicitous  propor- 
tion between  the  elements  of  intelligence  and  piety  fail 
in  any  case,  and  the  result  will  be  different.     A  dispro- 
portioned  action  of  the  mental  faculties,  an  indulgence 
of  mere  curiosity,  or  bold  inquisitiveness,  or  a  restless- 
ness under  a  deficiency  of  logical  or  demonstrative  evi- 
dence, will  issue  in  a  philosophical   scepticism,  a  cold 
and  unspiritual  frame  of  one's  religious  nature.     Let  the 
spiritual  instincts,  the   emotions,  the    sensibilities    and 
cravings  which  furnish  nutriment  to  piety,  be  allowed  to 
act  without  the  aid  of  the  mind's  best  workings,  and  the 
result  will  be  some  form  of  enthusiasm,  fanaticism,  or 
superstition.     The  most  zealous  advocates  of  Orthodox 
Christianity  will  go  with  us  in  acknowledging  these  con- 
sequences, when  either  reason  or  faith  is  allowed  to  act 
by  itself  in  contempt  of  the  other.     The  controversy  be- 
tween us  and  them  concerns  the  just  relations  of  reason 
and  faith  when  engaged  upon  revealed  religion,  and  the 
proportionate  indulgence  to  be  allowed  to  the  inquisitive 
intellect  and  the  believing  spirit.     We  give  to  ourselves 
what  we  regard  as  an  adequate  and  just,  as  well  as  a 
charitable  and  courteous,  explanation  of  the  prevalence 
of  Orthodox  views,  and  of  their  hold  upon  the  popular 
faith,  when  we  say  that  these  views  won  their  first  ac- 
ceptance, and  now  retain   their  impaired   authority,  be- 
cause the  mind,  the  reason,  has  not  been  allowed  its  right- 
ful functions  in  the  province  of  interpreting  revelation. 
Unreasonable  views  and  doctrines  have  been  accepted 
on  the  ground  that  reason  must  be  humbled  in  homage 
to  the  nobler  graces  of  faith.     Our  opponents  invert  this 
charge,  and  allege  that  we  indulge  the  pride  of  reason  at 
27 


314 


RUPTURE   OF   ORTHODOX  TIES. 


the  sacrifice  of  docility  and  humility  in  our  faith.  This 
censure  takes  for  granted  the  supposition,  which  we  by 
no  means  admit,  but  resolutely  deny,  that  revelation 
proposes  to  our  faith  doctrines  which  confound  and  cross 
the  suggestions  of  our  reason.  Denying  that  position, 
we  of  course  insist  that  Unitarian  views  engage  our 
intelligent  faith  because  they  satisfy  our  reason  and  win 
our  hearty  belief.  If  we  are  arrogant  in  claiming  some 
of  the  more  profound,  intelligent,  and  cultivated  Chris- 
tians as  witnesses  to  our  views,  we  only  display  the 
same  unamiable  quality  in  a  direction  opposite  to  that 
in  which  the  Orthodox  indulge  it,  in  claiming  the  more 
humble  and  devout  of  believers  for  their  communions. 
And  what  we  have  said,  we  repeat,  that  when  intelligent 
mental  culture  and  discipline,  and  an  earnest  spirit  of 
piety,  engage  in  fair  and  rightful  proportions  upon  the 
study  of  revealed  religion,  the  result  is  Unitarianism,  or 
a  tendency  to  Unitarianism.  The  prejudices  of  an  Or- 
thodox education  have  yielded  to  the  free  and  earnest 
efforts  of  the  mind  to  clear  up  some  of  the  perplexities 
of  its  faith.  In  cases  so  numerous  in  our  religious  biog- 
raphies, that  candor  must  allow  more  than  Orthodoxy 
has  ever  yet  admitted  on  this  point,  this  result  has  been 
verified.  Wherever  that  proportionate  combination  of 
intelligence  and  piety  of  which  we  have  spoken  has  been 
found,  in  a  single  person,  in  a  village,  in  a  religious  so- 
ciety, in  a  community,  in  a  social  or  academic  circle,  or 
in  a  nation,  there  Unitarianism,  or  a  tendency  to  Unita- 
rianism, has  been  the  sure  consequence.  Poland,  Holland, 
Switzerland,  Old  England,  and  New  England  present  us 
both  with  eminent  individual  names  and  with  general 
testimonies  illustrating  that  truth.  Out  of  the  best- 
trained  Orthodox  fellowships  in  those  lands  have  come 
men  and  women,  who,  often  by  wholly  independent  stud- 
ies and  exercises  of  their  own,  have  espoused  a  Liberal 
Christianity.     The  exigencies  of  consistency  with  their 


COURSE    OF   DISSENT   IN   ENGLAND.  315 

own  creed  compel  the  Orthodox  to  maintain  that  all 
these  lapses  are  tokens  of  an  inborn  depravity  which 
leads  the  pride  of  reason  to  emancipate  itself  from  the 
humbling  doctrines  of  the  Gospel.  Those  who  were 
regarded  as  saints,  so  long  as  they  kept  silence  and  re- 
pressed their  tendencies  and  remained  in  Orthodox  com- 
munions, simply  by  acknowledging  the  results  to  which 
faithful  Scripture  study  and  religious  discipline  have 
conducted  them,  become  all  at  once  the  most  odious 
heretics,  victims  of  one  of  the  most  subtle  forms  of  de- 
pravity. This  gross  outrage  alike  upon  common  sense 
and  upon  Christian  charity  has  been  well-nigh  shamed 
out  of  countenance  in  some  places,  where  it  was  once 
boldly  indulged  ;  but  it  occasionally  hints  even  now 
what  it  shrinks  from  proclaiming.  Again,  persons  who 
have  in  youth,  and  under  strong  excitement,  been  con- 
verted by  Orthodox  doctrines,  and  have  for  years  led  a 
religious  life  under  the  same  influences,  and  joined  in 
the  aspersions  cast  upon  Unitarianism,  have  in  their 
maturer  years,  on  fuller  study  and  experience,  become 
disciples  of  the  very  heresy  which  once  engaged  their 
hostile  zeal. 

What  candid  reader  of  the  lives  and  writings  of  Dr. 
Doddridge  and  Dr.  Watts  will  deny  the  traces  in  their 
religious  experience  and  culture  of  those  influences  and 
tendencies  which,  in  a  hundred  familiar  cases  on  record, 
have  relaxed  the  rigidness  of  an  early  creed,  and  led  on 
to  a  more  or  less  complete  recognition  of  substantial 
Unitarianism  ?  Were  not  those  excellent  men,  and 
others  of  their  contemporaries  at  that  very  interesting 
period  in  the  history  of  the  English  Dissenters,  inclining 
towards  the  views  which  were  adopted  by  some  of  their 
most  cherished  friends,  and  by  many  of  those  a  little 
younger  than  themselves,  who  had  been  in  close  sympa- 
thy with  them  ?  Doddridge's  Letters  and  Expositions 
contain   a  great  many  intimations  of  this  liberal  bent 


316  THE   ADVANCED    MINDS    OF    CHRISTENDOM. 

and  tendency  of  his  mind.  There  has  been  a  great  deal 
of  speculation  as  to  the  opinions  in  which  Dr.  Watts 
finally  rested  about  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  The 
most  significant  fact  in  the  whole  matter  is,  that  his  mind 
was  working  so  restlessly  upon  that  doctrine,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  say  what  his  final  opinions  about  it  were. 
Now,  for  ourselves,  we  regard  that  period  in  the  religious 
history  of  England  as  the  most  favorable  for  the  mani- 
festation and  working  of  an  intelligent  piety.  Its  emi- 
nent Dissenting  ministers  were  devout  men,  faithful  pas- 
tors, diligent  students  of  Scripture,  and  thorough  scholars. 
They  had  been  trained  under  Orthodoxy,  but  were  loyal 
to  freedom  in  faith.  Their  tendencies  have  an  emphatic 
significance,  and  as  to  what  they  were,  our  opinion  is 
decided  past  the  likelihood  of  a  change,  for  it  has  been 
formed  by  many  delightful  hours  of  Sunday  reading 
given  to  their  writings. 

In  what  direction  do  the  heretical  tendencies  of  the 
more  independent,  scholarly,  and  catholic-spirited  men 
of  the  Episcopalian,  Presbyterian,  Congregational,  Bap- 
tist, and  Methodist  communions,  here  and  in  Europe, 
develop  themselves?  We  hear  again  the  lament  over 
the  subtle  depravity  of  the  human  heart,  the  pride  of 
learning  and  reason  !  Leaving  the  judgment  of  the 
heart  to  Him  to  whom  it  belongs,  we  maintain  that 
reason  is  a  gift  to  be  proud  of,  and  learning  is  an 
excellent  distinction.  Of  both  of  them,  their  posses- 
sors ought  to  be  at  least  proud  enough  to  be  moved 
to  use  them  for  the  noblest  purpose,  which  is  as  helpers 
in  attaining  an  earnest  and  intelligent  faith  in  divine 
truth.  And  if  the  intelligent  exercise  of  close  and  in- 
quisitive thought,  and  the  searching  tests  of  reason,  while 
they  weaken  or  destroy  confidence  in  some  old  dogmas 
of  religion,  tend  to  strengthen  faith  in  the  great  truths  of 
revelation,  we  see  no  sign  of  depravity  in  confessing  the 
result.     Pride  and  obstinacy  may  be  exhibited  in  cling- 


VIGOR  OF  UNITARIANISM  IN  ENGLAND.  317 

ing  to  old  dogmas  rooted  in  education  and  prejudice,  as 
well  as  in  the  confession  of  a  change  of  opinions.  Uni- 
tarian tendencies  bid  fair  to  become  so  familiar,  that 
there  will  be  more  to  bear  their  reproach  and  fewer  to 
pronounce  it  upon  them.  At  any  rate,  Unitarianism,  to 
those  to  whom  it  is  a  spectre,  is  one  which  they  have 
never  succeeded  in  laying.  It  starts  up  in  strange  places, 
and  shows  itself  under  a  bishop's  lawn,  in  the  robes  and 
surplices  of  Episcopal  clergymen  and  Oxford  Fellows. 
The  same  heresy,  manifesting  itself  in  a  new  compilation 
of  psalms  and  hymns  for  public  worship  among  the 
Orthodox  Dissenters  in  England,  has  opened  a  sharper 
controversy  in  their  own  fellowship  than  they  have  ever 
waged  with  us.  "  The  Rivulet  School,"  so  called,  from 
the  title  of  the  new  hymn-book,  is  now  said  to  embrace  a 
large  number  of  the  most  earnest  and  able  of  the  reputed 
Orthodox  divines  among  the  Dissenters.  The  British 
Banner,  and  other  organs  of  the  Three  Denominations, 
are  filled  with  high-tempered  discussions  about  this  con- 
stantly intruding  heresy  of  Unitarianism.  The  current 
number  of  the  British  Quarterly,  an  Orthodox  review,  in 
an  article  on  the  Life  of  the  late  Dr.  Wardlaw,  says,  in 
reference  to  recent  Unitarian  manifestations  among  the 
"  Evangelical  Dissenters  "  :  "  It  is  true,  that,  in  so  far  as 
they  are  at  all  tangible,  these  appearances  go  within  a 
small  compass  at  present.  But  it  is  not  necessary  that 
these  small  beginnings  should  continue  small.  As  the 
religion  of  a  sect,  Unitarianism  is  feeble,  —  feebler  rela- 
tively than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Kippis  and  Priestley 
[which  is  not  true];  but  as  a  complexion  of  thought, 
tending  to  affect  the  opinions  of  reading  men  on  relig- 
ious subjects,  it  is  widely  diffused,  and  by  no  means  con- 
temptible. The  open  profession  of  Socinianism  is  a 
very  harmless  affair;  the  secret  leaven  of  it,  beyond  that 
circle,  is  another  matter."  These  sentences  are  quoted  in 
another  Orthodox  periodical,  which  adds  the  following : 
27* 


318      RELATIONS  OP  INTELLIGENCE  TO  PIETY. 

"  The  chief  danger  from  Unitarians  is  not  from  Unitarian- 
ism  embodied  in  a  sect,  but  from  its  secret  and  gradual 
spread  among  those  who  do  not  adopt  the  name." 

What  we  have  thus  so  frankly  avowed,  touching  our 
own  opinions  as  to  the  conditions  of  intelligent  thought 
and  religious  sentiment,  which,  when  combined  in  fair 
proportion,  are  sure  to  result  in  the  adoption  and  firm 
belief  of  Unitarian  views,  indicates  our  hope  for  the 
future,  as  well  as  our  interpretation  of  the  past  and  the 
present.  Unitarian  views  of  Christianity  will  advance 
in  a  single  mind,  in  a  community,  and  in  Christendom, 
according  as  that  combination  and  co-working  of  the 
ingredients  of  intelligence  and  earnest  faith  exists  and 
strengthens  itself.  Unitarian  views  will  decline  wher- 
ever those  united  and  well-proportioned  means  for  at- 
taining satisfying  convictions  of  religion  are  not  brought 
to  their  work.  According  as  either  reason  or  faith  yields 
its  just  office,  or  usurps  the  rights  of  its  co-worker,  will 
the  question  be  decided  as  to  what  shall  serve  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  Unitarianism.  If  the  pride  of  reason,  and  the 
restlessness  of  the  intellect,  and  the  sceptical  tendencies 
of  an  undevout  mind,  reject  the  control  and  guidance  of 
the  spiritual  nature,  unbelief  will  find  a  welcome  and 
a  sad  triumph.  If  reason  is  denied  its  rights,  and  is  bid 
to  humble  itself  before  dogmas  that  are  insisted  upon, 
notwithstanding  they  shock  and  confound  the  reason, 
if  an  intelligent  and  inquisitive  mind  is  forbidden  to  try 
its  tests  upon  the  evidences  and  doctrines  of  revelation, 
and  if  these  conditions  are  yielded  by  those  who  are 
still  willing  to  believe,  —  then  the  various  forms  of  the 
Christian  faith  which  have  prevailed  under  those  con- 
ditions in  past  ages  will  retain  or  regain  their  hold. 
Those  who,  like  some  converts  from  Protestantism  to 
Romanism,  say  that  they  do  not  wish  to  use  their  own 
freedom  of  speculation,  nor  to  depend  upon  their  own 
judgment  in  matters  of  faith,  will  turn  back  to  the  old 


ROMANISM   AND    SECULARISM.  319 

Church  because  it  offers  them  authority.  Reason  could 
not  receive  a  more  direct  slight  and  outrage  than  is  vis- 
ited upon  it  by  some  who,  with  this  plea,  commit  them- 
selves to  the  guidance  of  a  yearning  sentiment,  a  long- 
ing for  a  religious  refuge  without  bestowing  due  thought 
upon  the  rightful  grounds  of  the  very  authority  which 
they  value.  Reason  would  suggest,  that,  if  an  authori- 
tative church  is  to  be  sought  as  a  refuge  from  the  con- 
flicts of  speculation  and  private  judgment,  the  mind 
should  first  use  its  best  efforts  in  testing  the  claims  to 
such  authority.  What  has  the  Roman  Church  to  show 
for  its  credentials  ?  What  authority  has  it  for  demand- 
ing and  exercising  its  assumed  prerogative  in  matters  of 
faith  ?  Certainly  the  claim  of  authority  is  no  sufficient 
warrant  of  it.  Such  converts  to  Romanism  as  have 
tried  to  test  the  rightfulness  of  its  claims  by  Scripture 
and  history  have  not  really  renounced  their  private  judg- 
ment, as  they  pretend  to  have  done.  On  the  contrary, 
they  have  set  their  reasoning  powers  upon  one  of  the 
severest  and  most  serious  tasks,  and,  by  resting  in  the 
result  to  which  they  have  been  conducted,  they  have 
allowed  reason  to  settle  their  relations  to  faith.  Those 
converts  who  have  submitted  to  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  Church  without  challenging  the  grounds  on 
which  it  claims  that  authority,  have  simply  deceived 
themselves.  They  can  have  no  assurance  of  the  law- 
fulness and  security  of  the  very  authority  under  which 
they  seek  a  refuge.  A  fair  and  just  process  of  their 
reason,  applied  to  an  examination  of  the  foundations  of 
Romanism,  might  prove  to  them  that  the  stupendous 
fabric  is  a  fraud  or  a  fiction. 

Reliable  English  journals  assert  that  there  are  three 
millions,  at  least,  of  the  full-grown  men  and  women  of 
Great  Britain  in  avowed  or  real  sympathy  with  the  new 
sect  of  Secularists.  The  epithet  is  preferred  to  that  of 
Atheists,  because  of  the  prejudices  said  to  attach  to  the 


320       THE  ORTHODOX  CREED  UNREASONABLE. 

latter  title,  as  indicating  immorality  and  recklessness  of 
life,  as  well  as  a  lack  of  religions  belief.  The  Secular- 
ists, not  recognizing  a  life  to  come,  nor  any  motives  or 
influences  drawn  from  spiritual  or  heavenly  sanctions, 
maintain  that  reason  and  science  are  sufficient  guides, 
and  that  the  relations  of  this  life  give  sufficient  warrant 
to  virtue.  Here  we  have  reason  usurping  more  than  its 
rightful  prerogative,  and  violently  crushing  out  the  natu- 
ral instincts  and  yearnings  of  faith.  For  even  science 
teaches  us  that  this  earth  is  dependent  upon  and  is  con- 
trolled by  heavenly  influences,  and  would  be  a  wreck  if 
cut  off  from  the  resources  and  the  sway  of  the  upper 
realm.  Analogy  followed  out  even  by  reason,  to  say 
nothing  of  faith,  would  suggest  that  man  and  man's  life 
may  need  to  recognize  a  dependence  upon  unseen  pow- 
ers and  mysterious  influences. 

While  Romanism  thus  requires  an  implicit  faith,  and 
Secularism  makes  an  idol  of  reason,  the  popular  stand- 
ards of  Orthodoxy  treat  reason  with  degrees  of  slight 
and  violence  according  as  they  strain  or  relax  the  sharp- 
er conditions  of  the  Orthodox  creed.  Dr.  Edward 
Beecher  has  frankly  affirmed  that  the  doctrines  of  Or- 
thodoxy are  utterly  inconsistent  and  irreconcilable  with 
the  principles  of  honor  and  justice  in  the  Divine  govern- 
ment. If  this  be  so,  and  of  course  we  believe  it,  then 
the  Orthodox  creed  must  outrage  human  reason.  We 
cannot  believe,  without  violence  to  our  reason,  that  our 
Heavenly  Father  has  called  all  the  human  race  since 
Adam  into  existence  with  a  disabled  nature,  requiring  of 
them  at  the  same  time  a  holiness  which  only  a  perfect 
nature  could  manifest,  and  condemning  them  to  eternal 
woe  because  of  their  inability,  either  moral  or  physical, 
to  obey  him.  Reason  protests  against  such  a  doctrine ; 
and  if  it  were  found  in  the  Bible,  the  issue  would  be 
whether  the  warrant  of  the  Bible  substantiated  the  doc- 
trine, or  whether  the  doctrine  disproved  the  claims  of  the 


HOW   UNITARIANISM   MAY   BE   REPRESSED.  321 

Bible.  Orthodoxy  pleads  that  reason  must  humble  it- 
self before  such  humbling  doctrines,  and  receive  them  as 
coming  from  God.  Unitarianism  insists  that  the  Bible 
should  be  thoroughly  tested  by  reason  ;  that  the  same 
reasoning  powers  which  we  trust  in  other  matters,  rec- 
ognizing humility,  reverence,  and  faith  as  guides  in 
their  exercise,  should  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  doctrines 
offered  to  our  belief.  Finding  no  such  doctrines  in  the 
Bible,  Unitarianism  rests  in  the  harmony  between  reason 
and  faith,  and  proclaims  that  an  intelligent  piety  may 
live  and  thrive  in  what  is  called  Liberal  Christianity. 

Our  opponents  assert  that  there  is  relatively  less  of 
Unitarianism  in  our  immediate  neighborhood  than  there 
was  twenty  or  forty  years  ago.  It  may  be  so.  And  it 
may  be  that  there  is  relatively  less  of  some  offier  good 
things  here.  It  must  certainly  be  granted,  that,  if  the 
old  tests  and  tokens  and  outward  manifestations  of  an 
interest  in  theological  speculations  and  in  spiritual  truths 
were  fair  and  reliable,  as  indicating  the  real  amount  of 
religious  faith  and  zeal  in  the  community  at  large,  there 
has  been  a  real  decline  of  piety  among  all  denomina- 
tions. Whether  there  are  not  other  and  better  tests  of 
true  piety,  the  application  of  which  would  prove  an  ad- 
vance in  the  sentiment  and  practice  of  true  religion,  is 
a  question  on  which  we  will  not  enter.  There  is  a  con- 
dition, one  essential  condition,  under  which  Orthodoxy 
may  succeed  here  or  elsewhere  in  repressing  Unitarian- 
ism and  Unitarian  tendencies.  It  is  by  persuading  men 
and  women  to  accept  a  religious  creed  founded  on  rev- 
elation, with  a  full  consent  to  forego  the  freest  exercise 
of  their  reason,  their  intellects,  in  view  of  the  superior 
demands  of  faith.  Orthodoxy  must  persuade  us  that 
this  is  necessary,  and  must  induce  us  to  comply  with  it. 
It  must  insist  upon  the  formula,  Fides  ante  inteflectum, 
almost  in  the  sense  of  digestion  before  eating.  Ortho- 
dox criticism  has  to  admit  errors  of  various  kinds  in  the 


322  ORTHODOXY  OUTRAGES  REASON. 

Bible,  but  requires  us  nevertheless  to  believe  in  its  ple- 
nary inspiration  and  infallibility.  Reason  is  staggered. 
Reason  must  consent  to  be  staggered,  that  it  may  pay 
lawful  homage  to  faith.  Orthodoxy  requires  us  to  be- 
lieve that  on  account  of  Adam's  sin  all  human  beings 
who  have  been  born  since  have  an  impaired  ability  as 
regards  the  demands  of  God's  law,  but  still  are  held 
rigidly  to  those  demands,  and  are  subject  to  the  penalty 
of  disobedience.  Reason  wishes  to  ask  if  God's  ways 
are  "  equal "  in  this  respect.  But  Reason  is  reminded 
that  she  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter.  Ortho- 
doxy requires  us  to  believe  that  Christ  the  Mediator, 
who  referred  all  his  power  to  the  Being  whom  he  bade 
us  worship  as  the  Father,  is  still  the  very  God  who  he 
says  sent  him  into  the  world.  Reason  is  prompted  to  try 
to  reconcile  the  terms  of  these  statements,  and,  failing 
in  the  trial,  is  distrustful.  But  Reason  is  told  that  she  is 
trespassing  upon  what  is  beyond  her  province.  Ortho- 
doxy teaches  us  that  penitent  sinners  could  not  be  par- 
doned through  God's  mercy  without  the  vicarious  sacri- 
fice of  a  victim,  because  the  Divine  Word  had  threatened, 
"  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die!"  Reason  asks  how 
the  Divine  veracity  is  vindicated  by  the  scheme,  seeing 
that  the  threat  is  not  fulfilled  on  the  sinner,  but  that  the 
penalty  is  evaded.  But  Reason  is  bidden  to  humble  herself 
before  the  mystery  of  mysteries.  Reason  is  even  denied 
the  privilege  of  trying  her  own  rigid  methods  to  discover 
whether  these  Orthodox  doctrines  are  really  taught  in 
the  Bible.  Indeed,  every  suggestion  of  Reason,  to  the  ef- 
fect that  possibly  erroneous  interpretations  and  mistaken 
notions  may  have  been  applied  to  the  Bible,  is  visited 
with  a  reproaching  denial.  Now  if  reason  in  all  men 
and  women,  here  and  elsewhere,  can  be  induced  thus  to 
forego  all  its  instinctive  and  intelligent  impulses  to  com- 
prehend and  ratify  and  clear  up  the  subjects  offered  to 
faith,  and  will  admit  that  this  is  a  reasonable  condition 


HOW   ORTHODOXY  MAY  TRIUMPH.  323 

for  revelation  to  require,  then  Unitarianism  will  be  ut- 
terly extirpated.  If  all  our  race  can  be  made  to  assent 
to  that  condition,  then  all  our  race  will  be  Orthodox 
Christians.  If  that  theory  of  faith  be  the  only  theory 
offered,  and  no  one  challenges  it,  while  human  beings 
are  left  free  to  believe  or  not  to  believe  on  those  terms, 
there  will  be  many  Orthodox  Christians,  but  there  will 
also  be  an  innumerable  host  of  "  infidels."  If  we  are 
asked  to  account  for  the  fact,  that  the  majority  of  pro- 
fessed Christians  have  been  Orthodox,  we  answer,  that 
it  is  because  the  majority  have  been  persuaded  to  yield 
up  the  freest  exercise  of  their  reasoning  or  intellectual 
powers  in  deference  to  the  supposed  exactions  of  faith. 
In  other  words,  and  with  a  changed  application,  the 
same  explanation  which  comforts  our  Orthodox  Protes- 
tant brethren  under  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  professed 
Christians  are  Roman  Catholics,  comforts  us  also  in  view 
of  our  minority  as  respects  other  Protestants.  Ortho- 
doxy then  can  repress  Unitarianism  by  bringing  about 
a  change  in  the  proportions  of  free  intelligent  speculation 
and  living  devotional  sentiment,  which,  when  they  are 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  Scriptures,  have  always  here- 
tofore made  men  and  women  to  be  Unitarian  Christians. 
But  after  Unitarianism  had  been  thus  killed  out,  it  would 
be  sure  to  reappear  in  an  individual  or  in  a  community 
the  moment  that  reason  and  faith  in  fairly  propor- 
tioned combination  and  action  were  freely  exercised 
upon  the  Scriptures.  The  result  will  be  as  sure  as 
will  be  the  appearance  of  water  when  we  bring  together 
eight  parts  of  oxygen  and  one  of  hydrogen.  The  con- 
dition on  which  Orthodoxy  may  thus  extirpate  the  Uni- 
tarian heresy  may  thus  be  very  simply  stated,  whatever 
be  the  probability  that  the  result  will  ever  be  realized,  or 
the  degree  of  difficulty  in  the  way  of  reaching  it.  Or- 
thodoxy must  prevent  the  birth  and  the  growing  up  of 
the  sort  of  persons,  men  and  women,  that  are  sure  to  be  or 


324  MEMOIRS   OF  UNITARIANS. 

to  become  Unitarians.  Such  developments  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  nature  of  human  beings  as  inevi- 
tably result  in  the  adoption  of  Unitarian  views  by  per- 
sons otherwise  quite  unlike  each  other,  must  be  made 
impossible.  Let  Orthodoxy  take  a  miscellaneous  col- 
lection of  persons  whose  biographies  are  within  easy 
reach,  and  who,  having  been  trained  under  Orthodoxy, 
became  Unitarians  ;  for  instance,  the  biographies  of  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  John  Locke,  President  John  Adams,  Dr. 
Mayhew,  Judge  Story,  Dr.  Channing,  J.  S.  Buckmin- 
ster,  Henry  Ware,  Mrs.  Mary  L.  Ware,  Sylvester  Judd, 
and  C.  M.  Taggart.  Let  the  relationship  between  the 
inquisitive  processes  of  the  well-trained  and  freely  search- 
ing mind,  and  the  longing  instincts  of  the  soul  for  a  liv- 
ing confidence  in  spiritual  truths,  which  led  the  subjects 
of  all  those  memoirs  to  become  thoroughly  convinced, 
earnest,  happy,  and  consistent  Unitarians,  be  fairly  under- 
stood. The  secret  of  Unitarianism  is  bound  up  in  that 
inquiry.  Let  Orthodoxy  master  the  secret.  Then  if 
Orthodoxy  can  make  such  a  use  of  its  discovery  as  to 
prevent  such  an  exercise  of  such  a  relationship  between 
reason  and  faith  in  all  coming  generations,  it  will  an- 
nihilate Unitarianism.  The  process  may  seem  formida- 
ble, but  it  is  the  only  one  that  is  available.  Our  own 
opinion  is,  that  Orthodoxy  will  find  labor  enough  of 
this  kind  within  its  own  fellowships,  at  the  present 
time. 

In  closing  this  train  of  remark,  it  can  hardly  be  neces- 
sary for  us  to  repeat  our  assertion,  that  we  do  not  deny 
the  union  of  the  most  profound  piety  and  the  loftiest 
intelligence  in  men  and  women  shining  with  every 
Christian  grace,  whom  Orthodoxy  claims  as  among  her 
jewels.  Well  may  she  be  proud  of  them,  and  we  will 
join  in  paying  to  them  the  tribute  of  our  gratitude  and 
homage.  Our  position  has  been  just  this,  and  no  more, 
—  that,  when  with  a  humble  and  devout  spirit,  yearning 


DISESTEEM   OF   ORTHODOXY.  325 

for  true  faith  in  God  as  revealed  by  Jesus,  the  mind  is 
able  and  disposed  to  exercise  all  its  faculties  upon  the 
medium  and  the  substance  of  that  revelation,  and  feels 
free  to  indulge  its  reasoning  powers  upon  everything 
which  is  offered  to  faith,  the  result  is  Unitarianism,  or 
a  tendency  to  Unitarianism.  We  know  of  no  single 
fact  better  attested  than  that,  by  all  our  religious  litera- 
ture, and  by  experience  in  various  parts  of  Christendom 
and  in  all  classes  of  believing  men  and  women.  We 
anticipate  the  protest,  the  denial,  which  Orthodoxy  will 
raise  against  the  assertion.  But  we  calmly  and  firmly 
aver,  that  the  grounds  of  our  conviction  are  such  that 
Orthodoxy  cannot  shake  them. 

There  has  been,  and  is,  something  very  peculiar  in  the 
experience  of  Unitarian  ministers  in  this  and  in  other 
communities  which  has  never  been  sufficiently  allowed 
for.  The  older  members  of  our  societies  were  all  of 
them  in  their  youth  under  the  teaching  of  Orthodoxy. 
Orthodoxy  does  meet  the  religious  wants,  and  engage  the 
sensibilities,  and  satisfy  the  spiritual  cravings,  of  a  class 
of  persons  in  every  community.  But  Orthodoxy  always 
leaves  wholly  unreached  and  unsatisfied  another  class 
of  persons  just  as  sincere  and  devout  and  faithful,  —  so 
far  as  the  eye  of  man  can  discern,  —  as  are  the  converts 
to  the  old  creed.  Yet  more,  there  are  some  who  tell  us 
that  the  balance  of  confidence,  of  respect,  of  neighborly 
reliance  and  dependence  for  the  various  services  of  life, 
is  far  from  being  on  the  side  of  those  who  have  been 
sealed  by  the  testimony  of  Orthodoxy.  Some  who  have 
had  large  occasion  to  draw  on  the  sympathy,  the  for- 
bearance, the  service,  and  the  pecuniary  aid  of  others, 
in  the  straits  of  business,  in  bankruptcy,  in  misfortune 
and  sickness,  have  proclaimed  that  the  "world's  people" 
are  found  at  least  as  reliable  and  merciful  in  such  emer- 
gencies as  "  the  elect,"  A  communication  in  the  "  Pres- 
byterian "  newspaper,  quite  recentlv,  astounded  us  with 
28 


326  INFLUENCE   OF   ORTHODOXY   ON   CHILDHOOD. 

the  avowal,  that  it  gave  no  assurance  to  confidence  in  a 
man  in  the  walks  of  business  that  he  belonged  to  "  an 
evangelical  church."  We  hope  we  make  no  trespass 
upon  fair  charity  when  we  simply  recognize  the  fact, 
that  some  not  severe  judges  of  their  fellow-men  cannot 
help  believing  that  there  is  an  element  in  the  Orthodox 
doctrine  which  impairs  the  stringency  and  the  solem- 
nity of  individual  responsibility.  How  can  a  human  be- 
ing believe  that  he  has  been  ruined  by  the  sin  of  one, 
and  is  to  be  saved  by  the  righteousness  of  another, 
without  realizing  a  shock  of  confusion  in  all  his  ideas  of 
private  accountability  ?  For  these  and  other  reasons, 
Orthodoxy  always  leaves  some  who  are  as  sincere  and 
devout  as  its  best  converts  utterly  unreached  by  all  its 
appeals  and  methods.  Some,  too,  who  once  accepted 
its  doctrines  and  adorned  its  communion,  lose  their  faith 
in  its  peculiar  elements,  and  crave  a  higher,  freer,  relig- 
ious life.  Now  experience  has  proved  that  very  many 
who  are  not  satisfied  with  Orthodox  views  or  who  have 
outgrown  their  faith  in  them,  and  are  repelled  by  them 
as  false  and  of  an  injurious  tendency,  are  always  made 
more  difficult  of  religious  impression.  Their  early  train- 
ing has  warped  or  prejudiced  their  religious  nature. 
They  are  often  made  sceptical  for  life  by  this  process. 
Their  childhood  seems  dreary  to  them  in  memory. 
Their  early  religious  instruction  comes  back  to  them 
as  superstitious  and  forbidding.  Then,  too,  there  is  a 
grotesqueness  and  sometimes  a  spirit  of  grim  satire  and 
ridicule  associated  in  the  minds  of  the  irreverent  with 
themes  and  nursery  recollections  that  ought  to  be  be- 
dewed in  later  life  with  the  very  holiest  and  most  melt- 
ing power  for  the  heart.  That  strange  little  primer  of 
the  childhood  of  our  fathers  was  even  harder  in  its  asso- 
ciation of  subjects  than  in  its  rhymes.  Capital  B,  stand- 
ing by  the  Bible,  sustained  a  noble  burden  in  the  lines : 
"  Thy  life  to  mend,  God's  Book  attend."     But  capital 


INCREASE   OF   INTELLIGENT   BELIEVERS.  327 

C  came  next,  with  Tabby  and  her  two  little  victims 
singing  the  burden  :  "  The  Cat  doth  play,  And  after  slay." 
The  wit  of  some  young  sinner  against  reverence  and 
grammar  added  to  the  legend  on  capital  A,  "  In  Adam's 
Fall,  We  sinned  all,"  the  strictly  Calvinistic  comfort : 
"  Christ  Jesus  come,  To  save  some."  Some  of  the  biog- 
raphies to  which  we  have  just  referred  tell  us  how  sad 
at  heart  and  almost  unbelieving  the  subjects  of  them 
were  made,  how  alienated  from  the  joy  and  fervor  of 
all  earnest,  soul-quickening  faith,  by  the  form  in  which 
Christianity  was  presented  to  them  in  their  early  years. 
By  the  help  of  an  intelligent  and  a  devout  study  of  the 
Bible  they  worked  their  way  out  of  the  dreary  vapors 
of  a  Calvinistic  education,  and  it  became  afterwards 
the  joy  of  their  lives  to  indulge  the  liberty  in  which 
Christ  had  made  them  free.  But  our  communities 
still  contain  multitudes  whom  Orthodox  views  have 
rendered  sceptical,  —  hard  to  impress^  religiously.  Ortho- 
doxy takes  up  those  of  easiest  sensibility  and  conviction, 
and  leaves  the  hardest  subjects  to  Unitarianism. 

We  often  turn  over  in  our  minds  the  question,  wheth- 
er the  number  of  those  who  really  believe  and  feel  the 
power  of  religion  —  of  the  Gospel  religion  —  increases 
proportionately  to  the  increase  of  the  population  of 
Christendom.  Of  course  the  answer  must  be  made  more 
or  less  at  random,  according  to  the  information  and  the 
judgment  of  those  who  are  interested  in  the  matter. 
This,  at  least,  may  be  regarded  as  certain,  that  the 
number  of  persons  in  each  Christian  generation  who 
believe  and  feel  the  power  of  religion  as  the  result  of  in- 
telligent conviction  from  their  own  study  and  thought,  not 
from  authority,  or  fear,  or  superstition,  has  been  steadily 
increasing  in  every  age.  Religion  has  been  more  and 
more  taken  from  the  hands  of  priests,  and  men  have  be- 
come their  own  priests,  their  own  interpreters  of  oracles, 
their  own  sacrificers,  their  own  teachers  in  sacred  things. 


328  LIBERAL    CHRISTIANITY, 

Among  a  million  of  nominal  Christians  four  centuries 
ago,  there  were  probably  not  five  hundred  men  or  women 
who  had  made  the  foundations  and  the  substance  and 
the  doctrines  of  their  faith  matters  of  their  own  in- 
dependent inquiry  and  thought,  through  the  Scriptures 
and  history,  through  their  nature  and  experience.  The 
mass  simply  believed  or  tried  to  believe  as  they  were 
taught,  on  authority.  But  now,  out  of  any  million 
of  nominal  Christians  around  us,  a  very  large  number 
would  be  found  independent  and  intelligent  thinkers, 
having  more  or  less  "  reason  for  their  faith,"  acquainted 
with  the  Bible,  and  able  to  sustain  an  argument  for  high 
truth.  Unbelief,  too,  where  not  connected  with  gross 
vice,  is  more  dignified  and  self-distrustful,  less  bold  and 
violent  and  reckless. 

We  have  left  but  narrow  space  for  noting  some  of  the 
chief  distinguishing  conditions  of  a  religious  faith  which 
will  engage  the  confidence  of  devout  and  intelligent  per- 
sons, under  the  present  aspects  of  life. 

The  first  of  all  the  requisites  in  such  a  religion  is  that  it 
shall  be  Liberal.  We  mention  this  condition  even  before 
that  of  Truth,  because  a  religion  that  is  not  liberal  can- 
not be  true.  The  devout  and  intelligent  demand  a  lib- 
eral religion,  a  religion  large,  free,  generous,  comprehen- 
sive in  its  lessons,  a  religion  expansive  in  its  spirit,  lofty 
in  its  views,  and  with  a  sweep  of  blessings  as  wide  as 
the  range  of  man's  necessities  and  sins.  This  is  what 
is  meant  by  a  Liberal  Religion,  or  Liberal  views  of  re- 
ligion, or  Liberal  Christianity.  An  attempt  is  made  at 
the  very  start  to  prejudice  this  liberal  view  of  religion 
by  giving  to  it  a  bad  name,  and  by  assigning  to  it  an 
unsanctified  purpose.  Some  persons  would  interpret 
Liberality  in  a  religious  creed  as  meaning  laxness, 
looseness,  as  making  things  easy  for  easy  consciences, 
as  letting  down  the  high  demands  of  righteousness,  and 
as  taking  light  and  dangerous  views  of  duty  and  sin 


•QUALITIES    OF   LIBERAL   CHRISTIANITY.  329 

and  man's  future  destiny.  This  is  a  perversion,  a  false 
charge.  Under  a  liberal  religion  the  utmost  seriousness 
and  solemnity  of  feeling,  and  the  strictest  laws  of  mor- 
al conduct  and  religious  responsibility,  find  at  least  an 
equal  sanction  with  what  they  do  under  narrow,  cramped, 
and  illiberal  views  of  religion,  if  not  a  higher  one.  Lib- 
eral views  of  religion  do  not  exclude  the  just  workings 
of  the  wrath  of  a  holy  God  from  this  world ;  nor  do  they 
by  any  means  require  the  teaching  that  death  is  salva- 
tion for  everybody,  and  that  there  is  no  state  of  hell  be- 
yond the  grave.  It  is  not  in  order  to  obtain  a  license 
for  sin  or  excuses  for  folly,  or  to  diminish  the  pains  and 
penalties  of  unrighteousness  towards  God  or  man,  that 
we  demand  a  large  and  generous  and  comprehensive 
faith.  It  is  that  we  may  free  the  Deity  and  his  attri- 
butes and  his  government  from  all  those  offensive  and 
degrading  and  enslaving  notions  which  false  opinions 
have  gathered  about  them.  It  is  that  we  may  have  a 
faith  that  can  radiate  the  whole  space  up  to  heaven,  and 
shine  benignantly  over  the  earth,  and  interpret  largely 
and  gratefully,  seriously  and  confidingly,  the  will  and 
purposes  of  God  towards  man.  We  want  a  faith  so 
generous  and  forbearing  and  merciful  in  its  delineations 
of  the  Father  of  our  poor,  sinning,  dying  race,  that  it 
will  shame  every  mean  outrage  which  we  through  our 
own  passions  inflict  upon  a  brother-man,  —  a  faith  that 
will  not  only  open  a  loophole  for  our  exit  from  the  pit 
of  condemnation  into  a  psalm-singing  conference  of 
saints,  but  will  fling  open  and  keep  open  the  wide  doors 
of  a  gracious  clemency  to  catch  the  crowds  who  can  at 
least  be  grateful  for  forgiveness. 

Take  now  two  or  three  illustrations  of  what  is  meant 
by  Liberal  views  of  religion,  in  contrast  with  the  con- 
tracted and  illiberal  views  which  have  prevailed  in  Chris- 
tian communities.  These  millions  of  human  beings  who 
live  on  the  earth  in  their  ever-changing  generations,  —  are 
28* 


330  FATE    OF  THE   HEATHEN. 

they  all  a  doomed  race,  born  in  sin,  destined  to  eternal 
woe,  unless  rescued  by  a  partial  exercise  of  Divine  mer- 
cy ?  Or  are  they  creatures  and  children  of  a  kind  and 
good  Father,  born  with  the  nature  which  he  has  pleased 
to  give  them,  imperfect,  frail,  needing  discipline,  right- 
eously governed,  piteously  commiserated,  and  so  to  be 
judged  here  and  hereafter  by  what  they  can  themselves 
admit  is  a  perfect  rale  of  equity  ?  One  of  these  views 
is  Liberal,  the  other  is  Illiberal.  One  is  large,  generous, 
free,  just ;  the  other  is  dreary,  hopeless,  unjust* 

Then  there  is  the  still  current  form  of  the  doctrine  of 
Election.  The  word  is  used  freely  in  the  Scriptures,  and 
what  the  word  truly  signifies  is  there  too,  a  Scripture  doc- 
trine. But  Election  is  never  applied  in  the  Scriptures 
to  individuals  as  such  distinct  from  a  class,  and  it  never 
refers  to  a  future  life.     It  always  relates  to  the  calling 

*  We  have  taken  much  satisfaction,  all  through  this  series  of  articles,  in 
quoting  at  length  concessions  from  Orthodox  sources,  amounting  sometimes 
even  to  rebukes  of  what  have  long  passed  for  accepted  tenets  in  the  creed 
of  Orthodoxy.  Our  readers  may  remember  a  figure  of  speech  used  on 
the  May  platforms  twenty  years  ago,  by  Dr.  Scudder,  a  returned  Orthodox 
missionary,  —  of  a  platoon  of  heathens  a  mile  or  two  broad,  and  three  or 
four  miles  long,  driving  on  to  the  pit  of  hell,  and  demanding  zeal  in  the 
missionary  cause  to  save  them.  In  an  admirable  article  in  the  North 
British  [Scotch  Church]  Review  for  August,  1856,  on  Christian  Missions, 
some  stuff  of  a  similar  tenor  is  quoted  from  a  recent  American  missionary 
report.  Thus  :  "  Every  hour,  yea,  every  moment,  the  heathen  are  dying, 
and  dying,  most  of  them,  without  any  knowledge  of  the  Saviour.  On 
whom  now  rests  the  responsibility  ?  "  &c,  &c,  —  implying  that  the  respon- 
sibility of  rescuing  the  heathen  rests  with  men.  The  Reviewer  adds :  "  Can 
this  be  mere  ad  captandum  language,  intended  to  draw  contributions  to 
the  missionary  societies  ?  If  so,  it  is  very  wicked.  But  if  it  be  really 
genuine  and  sincere,  how  melancholy  a  fanaticism  does  it  display  !  We 
shudder  at  the  accounts  of  devil-worship  which  come  to  us  from  so  many 
mission-fields.  We  pity  the  dreary  delusion  of  the  Manichees,  who  en- 
throned the  Evil  Principle  in  heaven.  But  if  we  proclaim  that  God  is 
indeed  one  who  could  decree  this  more  than  Moloch  sacrifice  of  the  vast 
majority  of  his  own  creatures  and  children,  for  no  fault  or  sin  of  theirs, 
we  revive  the  error  of  the  Manichee ;  for  the  God  whom  we  preach  as  a  de- 
stroyer of  the  guiltless  can  be  no  God  of  justice,  far  less  a  God  of  love," 
&c,  &c. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  ELECTION.  331 

or  the  choice  of  a  whole  people  like  the  Jews,  and  after- 
wards of  all  who  should  ever  live  under  the  Gospel,  to 
the  enjoyment  of  peculiar  privileges  here,  in  this  world, 
during  this  life.  Judgment  and  destiny  were  of  course 
made  dependent  upon  the  use,  the  improvement,  or  the 
neglect  of  these  privileges.  Judas  himself  was  one 
of  the  elect.  "  Jesus  said,  '  Have  I  not  chosen  you 
twelve  ?  '  "  But  this  did  not  hinder  that  Judas  should 
"  go  to  his  own  place."  The  Jews  were  the  "  elect 
people,"  because  to  them  was  given  the  knowledge  of 
the  will  of  the  true  God.  They  were  elected  to  enjoy 
the  truths  of  religion  and  the  blessings  of  a  visible  Di- 
vine government  here  in  this  world.  But  individual 
Jews  were  subject  to  the  same  righteous  judgment  for 
the  use  of  their  privileges,  as  were  individuals  not  JeAvs 
for  their  use  of  lesser  privileges.  Future  judgment 
would  decide  between  the  faithful  and  the  faithless 
among  even  the  elect.  Christians  acceded  to  the  ad- 
vantages heretofore  enjoyed  by  the  Jews  as  an  elect 
people,  i.  e.  as  permitted  certain  precious  privileges  here 
in  this  world  ;  they  were  not  made  sure  of  salvation  in 
the  next  world  merely  on  the  score  of  their  having  been 
thus  favored  here.  Thus  St.  Paul  tells  his  converts,  that 
he  had  prayed  for  them  u  lest  their  election  should  be 
vain,"  i.  e.  lest  they  should  prove  to  make  an  unworthy 
use  of  the  privileges  they  enjoyed.  How  could  their 
election  be  vain  if  it  insured  their  future  salvation  ?  So 
also  he  exhorts  his  converts  "  to  make  their  calling  and 
election  sure,"  evidently  proving  that  election  means  the 
enjoyment  of  opportunities  here,  on  the  right  improve- 
ment of  which  depended  the  promised  reward  here- 
after. 

But  now  observe,  by  contrast,  what  a  shocking  per- 
version has  been  made  of  this  doctrine  of  Election 
by  an  illiberal  theology.  It  has  been  interpreted  as 
meaning  this  :    That,  ages  before   we  were  born,  God, 


332  CALVINISTIC    VIEW   OF   ELECTION. 

of  his  own  sovereign  partiality,  or — as  says  the  New- 
England  Confession  of  Faith  —  "out  of  his  mere  free 
grace  and  love,  without  any  foresight  of  faith  or  good 
works,  or  any  other  thing  in  the  creature,  as  condi- 
tions or  causes  moving  him  thereunto,"  chose  some  of 
his  children  for  salvation,  put  their  names  upon  a  rec- 
ord, and  as  these  appear  in  their  generations  makes 
them  by  his  Holy  Spirit  the  subjects  of  renewal  and 
the  heirs  of  bliss.  The  Confession  adds :  "  This  effect- 
ual call  is  of  God's  free  and  especial  grace  alone,  not  from 
anything  at  all  foreseen  in  man,  who  is  altogether  pas- 
sive therein."  "  The  rest  of  mankind  God  was  pleased 
to  ordain  to  dishonor  and  wrath  for  their  sin,  to  the 
praise  of  his  glorious  justice."  After  this  shocking  par- 
ody of  a  noble  and  reasonable  Scripture  doctrine  had 
been  established  in  the  popular  faith,  as  an  element  of 
Calvinism,  there  arose  a  question  as  to  the  terms  and 
conditions  of  this  election.  Arminius  ventured  to  sug- 
gest that  God  elected  for  salvation  those  who  he  foresaw 
would  improve  the  means  of  grace  ;  and  that  he  thus 
had  respect  to  their  obedience  and  good  works.  This 
suggestion,  which  carries  us  half-way  back  to  the  true 
Scripture  doctrine,  was  an  attempt  to  let  in  one  ray  of 
reason  upon  the  Calvinistic  dogma.  But  it  was  de- 
nounced as  a  heresy,  and  is  so  regarded  to  this  day, 
under  the  name  of  Arminianism,  —  the  real  Orthodox 
doctrine  being  that  God,  in  electing  the  heirs  of  his 
grace  from  all  eternity,  has  no  reference  whatever  to 
their  merits  or  obedience,  but  acts  entirely  according 
to  the  sovereign  pleasure  of  his  will.  Now  we  call  this 
an  illiberal,  a  contracted,  a  narrow  and  unworthy  doc- 
trine, besides  being  a  perversion  of  the  true  Scripture 
view  of  Election.  It  gives  us  a  most  illiberal  and  grov- 
elling representation  of  God  and  of  his  government.  In 
contrast  with  this,  the  liberal,  the  Scripture  view  is  that 
God  knows  no  such  partiality,  no  such  favoritism,  but 


A   LIMITED    ATONEMENT.  333 

puts  each  one  of  his  children  on  an  equality  as  regards 
the  future,  by  judging  them  righteously  according  to 
the  good  or  the  bad  use  which  they  make  of  their  vari- 
ous privileges  and  opportunities. 

Then  follow  this  distinction  between  a  liberal  or  an 
illiberal  theology  into  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  or 
the  work  of  reconciliation  by  Jesus  Christ.  Is  the  effi- 
cacy of  Christ's  death  limited  to  a  portion  of  our  race, 
or  free  for  the  advantage  of  all  ?  Calvinism  originally 
taught  a  limited  atonement.  New-School  Orthodoxy 
professes  to  believe  in  an  unlimited,  unrestricted  efficacy 
of  the  death  of  Christ  as  a  ground  for  proffering  sal- 
vation to  all.  But  how  do  the  two  parties  explain 
themselves  on  this  difference  between  them  ?  The  ad- 
vocates of  the  limited  atonement  maintain  that  Christ's 
death  is  of  service  only  to  those  whom  he  actually  saves. 
The  advocates  of  an  unlimited  atonement  come,  in  fact, 
to  the  same  result ;  for  they  teach  that  though  all  have 
the  offer  of  salvation  through  Christ,  though  all  are  called 
by  him,  yet  that  the  renewing  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
which  alone  can  dispose  the  sinful  heart  to  avail  itself 
of  this  offer,  is  wrought  only  upon  the  heirs  of  salvation. 
The  agency  of  the  third  person  of  the  Trinity,  which  is 
necessary  to  render  the  work  of  the  second  person  of 
the  Trinity  of  efficacy  to  individuals,  is  not  as  extensive 
as  the  benefit  of  the  Atonement.  The  offer  is  made  to 
all ;  but  the  ability  to  accept  it,  to  avail  of  it,  is  not 
granted  to  all,  but  only  to  a  portion  of  those  who  live 
under  the  Gospel.  The  Atonement  is  sw/ficient  for  all; 
but  it  is  e/ncient  for  only  a  portion  of  our  race.  What, 
then,  is  the  difference  in  the  real  substance  of  the  mat- 
ter between  these  two  Orthodox  parties  as  to  a  limited 
or  an  unlimited  Atonement  ?  Nothing^at  all.  We  call 
their  view,  then,  an  element  of  an  illiberal  theology.  A 
liberal  theology  insists  that  the  love  and  offers  of  God 
through  Christ  should  be  construed  in  the  largest,  freest 


334         THE  CREED  OR  THE  CHARACTER. 

sense ;  that  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  which  makes  the  prof- 
fer of  reconciliation  available,  should  be  as  unrestricted 
as  the  grace  of  God  and  the  mediation  of  the  Saviour 
in  providing  the  means  of  it  for  all. 

Once  more,  what  says  a  liberal  theology,  in  contrast 
with  an  illiberal  theology,  in  reference  to  the  whole  work 
of  religion  on  the  heart  and  life,  —  the  substantial  tests 
and  tokens  of  a  Christian  character, — the  proof  that  any 
one  is  in  the  way  of  salvation  ?  An  illiberal  theology 
exalts  a  creed,  a  speculative  opinion,  into  prominent  im- 
portance as  a  test.  A  liberal  theology  subordinates 
opinion  to  the  prior  significance  of  a  pure  and  faithful, 
a  devoted  and  useful  life,  conformed  to  the  practical 
precepts  of  the  Master.  "Whatever  tests  we  refer  to  Al- 
mighty Wisdom  for  the  judgment  of  men  here  or  here- 
after, must  be  such  as  will  impress  us  with  a  sense  of 
their  absolute  justice,  such  as  we  can  ourselves  confide 
in,  and  can  apply  rigidly.  If  our  faith  in  these  tests  fal- 
ters, they  will  bring  down  all  our  religion.  The  progress 
of  independent  thought  and  inquiry  applied  to  religion 
has  brought  about  much  the  same  results  as  have  fol- 
lowed from  political  strifes  and  convulsions,  all  the 
world  over.  It  has  led  men  to  demand  their  impartial 
rights,  to  insist  upon  an  independence  of  soul,  upon  im- 
partial laws,  and  upon  a  destruction  of  all  class  privi- 
leges. There  have  been  forms  of  religion  in  the  world, 
and  even  under  the  name  of  Christianity,  which  have 
corresponded  to  all  the  forms  of  government,  the  patri- 
archal, the  priestly,  the  tyrannical,  the  despotic,  the  mon- 
archical, the  aristocratic,  and  the  constitutional.  The 
latest  struggles  and  developments  of  religion  demand  a 
pure  .independency,  a  democracy.  No  longer  can  we 
ascribe  to  the  Divine  rule  over  us  an  arbitrary  election 
and  reprobation,  by  which  some  persons,  not  one  whit 
different  in  life  and  character  from  some  of  their  neigh- 
bors, may  claim  to  have  been  the  subjects  of  a  mysteri- 


TRUTH  THE   AUTHORITY   OF  RELIGION.  335 

ous  change,  sealing  them  for  heavenly  bliss,  while  the 
rest  of  the  world  is  left  to  perdition.  "  A  just  weight 
and  balance  are  the  Lord's."  Thoughtful,  earnest,  and 
devout  minds  now  demand  a  liberal  religion.  Liberal 
in  the  honest,  pure,  and  noble  sense  of  that  word.  Not 
liberal  in  the  sense  of  license,  recklessness,  or  indiffer- 
ence ;  not  in  turning  the  sanctities  of  heaven  into  the 
streets,  nor  in  making  a  scoff  of  holy  restraints  and 
solemn  mysteries.  Not  liberal  as  the  worldling  or  the 
fool  uses  the  word,  for  overthrowing  all  distinctions,  and 
reducing  life  to  a  revel  or  a  riot.  The  demand  is  for 
a  liberality  which  will  leave  the  soul  uncramped  and 
untortured  in  working  upon  the  solemn  problems  of  di- 
vinity, and  casting  its  conceptions  of  a  future  state,  and 
interpreting  the  ways  of  God  to  men,  —  insuring  a  large, 
free,  strong,  and  sanctifying  faith.  Such  a  faith  cannot 
afford  to  raise  an  issue  with  reason  on  a  single  point, 
so  far  as  their  road  on  the  highway  of  truth  will  allow 
them  to  keep  company  together.  When  they  part  for 
faith  to  advance  beyond  reason,  they  must  part  in  per- 
fect harmony. 

A  second  prime  requisite  in  a  religion  that  shall  sat- 
isfy thoughtful,  earnest,  and  devout  persons  is  that  it 
shall  have  authority,  —  the  authority  of  positive,  reliable 
truth.  It  must  have  a  firm  basis,  a  solid  foundation. 
We  have  learned  in  this  age  of  the  world  the  utmost 
limit  of  man's  attempts  to  work  his  way  by  mere  human 
wisdom,  by  philosophy,  by  science,  or  any  other  exercise 
of  his  own  ingenuity.  We  want  something  better  than 
these,  something  more  stable,  more  satisfactory,  some- 
thing that  has  authority.  Man  is  better  at  guessing 
than  in  any  other  exercise  of  his  faculties ;  and  in  accept- 
ing the  results  of  his  guessing  faculty,  he  often  forgets 
the  risks  of  the  process  by  which  he  attained  them. 
Man  can  conjure  up  all  sorts  of  notions  about  himself, 
and  about  all  the  mysteries  which  surround  him,  —  the 


336  CHRIST    THE    FAITHFUL  AND   TRUE   WITNESS. 

mysteries  in  which  he  lives,  of  which  he  thinks,  of  which 
he  feels  the  solemn  power,  and  especially  of  that  mys- 
tery which  he  himself  is.  Man  can  construct  theories  of 
his  own  about  everything,  and  so  about  religion,  and 
sometimes  he  can  believe  his  own  theories,  and  find 
strength  and  comfort  and  hope  in  them.  But  notwith- 
standing all  this,  a  religion  which  is  to  satisfy  a  thought- 
ful, earnest,  and  devout  person  must  have  authority  over 
and  above  and  outside  of  his  own  thinking  and  reason- 
ing powers,  his  own  guesses  or  fancies,  his  own  knowl- 
edge or  wisdom.  The  inmost  soul  within  him  is  capa- 
ble of  answering  to  divine  truth ;  but  it  must  be  divine 
truth,  not  human  imaginations  or  guessings,  that  will 
move  the  secret  depths  of  that  soul. 

What,  then,  is  the  authority  of  the  true  Christian  relig- 
ion, and  who  gave  it  that  authority  ?  The  revelation 
of  God's  will  made  by  Christ  has  two  chief  mediums  of 
addressing  itself  to  us,  of  communicating  to  us  its  les- 
sons, its  substance,  its  design,  and  its  proof.  One  of 
these  is  in  the  record  of  the  revelation  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament. The  other  is  in  the  actual  presence  of  the 
workings  and  effects  of  that  religion  in  the  world,  for 
ages,  —  its  institutions,  its  experimental  trial,  the  illustra- 
tions of  its  influence,  the  manner  of  its  operation  in  an 
infinite  variety  of  cases  and  ways.  We  search  and  try 
according  to  our  ability  both  these  sources  of  knowledge 
about  our  religion,  and  we  ask  whether  we  find  in  them 
tokens  of  a  divine  authority  before  which  our  souls 
should  bow  ?  Can  our  faith  seize  on  them  with  a  bold 
and  joyful  confidence,  leading  us  to  say,  with  the  first 
two  disciples,  "  We  have  found  the  Messiah,  the  true 
messenger  of  the  Covenant,  one  whom  we  can  believe 
and  love,  and  follow  as  he  guides  us  through  this  world, 
with  the  hope  of  a  purer  and  a  holier  life  to  come  "  ?  There 
is  room  still  left  for  our  speculations  and  our  guesses. 
All  the  questions  which  the  mind  asks  are  not  settled 


A  RELIGION   OF    AUTHORITY.  337 

once  for  all,  when  we  find  something  that  has  for  us  the 
authority  of  heaven-taught  truth.  We  may  still  debate 
matters  of  evidence,  and  matters  of  doctrine,  and  myste- 
ries of  faith.  There  is  still  a  range  for  free  speculation 
as  to  the  shape  or  the  point  at  which  we  will  frame 
our  spirits  to  accept  the  mysterious,  the  inexplicable, 
the  supra-rational  elements  of  religion.  But  the  main 
question  after  all  is,  Have  we  faith  ?  Have  we  found 
something  which  wins  and  holds  our  confidence,  —  some- 
thing which  we  can  believe,  something  which  we  do  be- 
lieve as  our  lives,  something  that  has  authority  for  us  ? 

We  all  know  that  the  very  foundations  of  faith  are 
unsettled  for  multitudes  around  us,  and  that  on  this  ac- 
count the  Gospel  has  not  the  authority  of  truth  for  them. 
A  great  many  influences  may  contribute  to  cause  this 
lack  of  faith.  Ignorance,  conceit,  bewilderment  of  mind, 
honest  perplexity,  prejudice,  the  distractions  of  religious 
controversy,  the  varieties  of  belief  and  opinion, — all  these 
causes,  besides  real  worldliness  or  wickedness  of  heart 
and  life,  pride,  indifference,  wrong  biases  of  character, 
and  obstinacy  of  spirit,  may  help  to  account  for  scepti- 
cism and  all  irreligion.  Various  remedies  also  may  be 
applied  to  remove  these  obstacles  to  faith  in  the  author- 
ity of  revelation.  Good  advice,  good  books,  argument, 
appeal,  may  all  be  of  service.  Still  there  is  a  condition 
paramount  to  all  others,  on  which  alone  any  one  can  be 
made  to  feel  the  authority  of  Christian  truth.  He  must 
put  himself  in  the  attitude  of  a  pupil,  at  the  feet  of  its 
Teacher.  He  must  realize  the  existence  within  him  of 
a  believing  faculty,  which  is  to  dispose  him  to  re- 
ceive convictions  through  his  spiritual  nature  when  his 
mental  powers  have  reached  their  limits  in  exploring  the 
field  of  truth.  His  heart  must  be  reverently  ordered 
into  a  humble  frame  ;  his  ear  must  listen,  that  he  may 
be  in  a  state  to  attend  to  the. voice  of  God,  should  God 
speak  to  him.  He  is  asking  whether  there  is  in  this 
29 


338  PRACTICAL   RELIGION. 

world,  available  for  his  use,  a  doctrine  and  method  of  re- 
ligion worthy  of  being  referred  to  God  as  its  source,  and 
suited  to  renew  and  purify  and  sanctify  all  the  elements 
of  his  own  life.  That  question  must  be  submitted  to 
the  personal  consciousness  and  experience  of  every  hu- 
man being.  No  one  can  answer  it  for  another.  The 
answer  to  it  decides  for  each  one  whether  the  Gospel 
has  to  him  the  authority  of  truth.  Jesus  taught  as  hav- 
ing this  authority.  His  hearers  could  understand  him. 
They  felt,  they  appreciated,  this  quality  of  his  teachings. 
They  were  impressed  by  the  marked  contrast  between 
the  substance,  the  tone,  and  the  weight  of  his  lessons,  and 
those  which  they  had  been  in  the  habit  of  hearing  from 
quibbling  scribes,  and  word-splitting  doctors,  and  ingen- 
ious lawyers,  with  all  their  fanciful  interpretations  and 
silly  traditions  and  weak  conceits,  so  debilitating  to  the 
healthful  energies  of  a  craving  religious  soul.  We 
want  a  religion  which  has  authority,  evidences  and  dem- 
onstrations, sanctions  and  solemnities,  befitting  a  doc- 
trine which  claims  to  rule  our  spirits  and  to  guide  our 
lives,  to  minister  to  our  sins  and  sorrows,  our  fears  and 
hopes. 

A  third  and  last  requisite  which  we  may  mention,  in 
a  religion  that  will  meet  the  wants  of  thoughtful,  earnest, 
and  devout  persons,  is  that  of  a  living,  practical  power 
to  promote  true  holiness,  to  work  on  the  springs  of 
character,  to  foster  ardent  piety  in  the  soul  of  a  be- 
liever, and  to  cultivate  benevolence  and  virtue  in  his  life. 
This  is  the  final  test  of  all  true  religion.  There  is 
no  more  deplorable,  dreary  thing  on  this  earth,  than  a 
lifeless  faith,  a  cold,  torpid,  indifferent  religion;  We 
want  a  faith  by  which  we  can  live,  which  shall  be  the 
energy  of  our  own  lives,  which  will  continually  excite 
the  depths  of  our  being,  and  move  us  to  fidelity,  and  be 
hourly  rebuking  our  worldliness  and  sinfulness.  We 
want   a  cheerful   faith,  —  a  faith    which    will  make  us 


UXGENIAL   RELIGION.  339 

kind  and  generous  and  unselfish  and  happy.  Professed 
Christians,  the  church-members  in  some  communions, 
under  some  forms  of  faith,  in  their  way  of  regarding  and 
treating  those  who  do  not  belong  to  them,  have  seemed 
to  think  that  a  line  of  separation  has  been  drawn  by 
their  creed  between  them  and  their  fellow-creatures  for 
all  eternity.  If  in  a  humble  and  thoroughly  self-search- 
ing spirit  they  were  to  ask  themselves  what  quality  the 
pure  eye  of  God  discerns  in  them  to  distinguish  between 
them  and  all  others  in  the  allotments  of  the  everlasting 
retributions  of  a  future  life,  they  might  be  perplexed  to 
answer  the  question.  The  old  stereotyped  answer,  that 
they  rely  upon  their  faith  in  the  merits  of  Christ,  will  not 
do  now-a-days,  unless  it  is  translated  into  the  intelligible 
language  of  practical  common-sense.  They  consider 
themselves  as  the  saved,  and  all  others  as  the  lost.  They 
resemble  those  who  clutch  at  the  long-boat  of  a  sinking 
ship  loaded  with  passengers,  and  row  off,  leaving  their 
former  companions  to  a  fearful  fate.  Now  a  religion 
which  regards  the  vast  proportion  of  human  beings  as 
under  the  curse  of  God,  doomed  for  ever,  may  perhaps 
lead  to  a  sort  of  holy  horror  or  a  dismal  pity  towards 
them,  but  cannot  excite  a  love  and  tenderness  and  mercy 
and  devotion  like  that  of  Christ. 

Not  in  a  censorious  spirit,  if  we  know  our  own  heart, 
but  in  mortified  sadness  at  seeing  the  short-comings  of 
a  religion  which  ought  to  live  and  act  with  all  the  ge- 
nial energies  of  a  glowing  flame  of  universal  love  in  a 
community,  and  attract  every  well-disposed  heart  to  its 
high  work,  would  we  venture  to  hint  at  .facts  which 
our  own  professional  biases  might  dispose  us  to  pal- 
liate. Take  the  body  of  communicants,  the  church-fel- 
lowship in  some  of  our  town  or  village  parishes,  where 
the  spirit  of  an  ungenial  religion  rules  supreme,  and  ask 
what  attraction  that  covenanted  circle  has  for  many 
generous-hearted,  warm-souled  young  persons  of  either 


340  SCHEMING   RELIGION. 

sex  ?  They  know  very  well  that  the  "  Church"  includes 
some  most  excellent  men  and  women,  wearing  every 
winning  grace  of  piety  and  love ;  persons  whose  natu- 
rally amiable  characters  have  been  called  out  and  refined 
by  pure  religion,  or  have  helped  to  temper  the  austerities 
of  a  repulsive  creed.  But  such  persons,  unfortunate- 
ly, do  not  make  up  the  whole  Church,  nor  furnish  the 
standard  which  exhausts  the  prime  conditions  for  admis- 
sion to  it.  The  young  know  very  well  that  there  are 
some  exceedingly  hard,  uninteresting,  and  forbidding 
members  among  the  foremost  in  such  communions, — 
sour-visaged,  scandal-loving,  morose  old  women,  and 
men  whose  sharpness  at  a  bargain  proves  that  the  eye 
opened  on  another  world  has  lost  none  of  its  keenness 
for  this.  The  exercises  which  engage  these  fellowships 
in  their  meetings  have  often  a  clammy  or  sombre  char- 
acter, a  grim  and  dreary  aspect,  to  the  young.  And  so 
the  "  vestry  "  assemblies  for  conference,  held  generally 
in  the  cellar  of  a  meeting-house,  draw  together  for  the 
most  part  those  who  have  long  shared  all  the  privileges 
there  offered.  The  young  are  not  attracted  by  a  relig- 
ion which  makes  such  an  exposition  of  itself  and  its 
prominent  disciples.  And  so  the  current  of  the  world 
sweeps  by  the  Church.  Hearts  that  yearn  for  some  kind 
of  fellowship,  —  fellowship  too  in  works  of  love,  of  mu- 
tual benefit  and  extensive  benevolence,  —  the  very  works 
which  the  Christian  Church  ought  to  be  foremost  in  insti- 
gating and  serving,  —  are  driven  to  organize  all  sorts  of 
odd-fellowships,  and  semi-charitable  associations.  The 
masses  of  the  tempted,  the  indifferent,  the  pleasure-seek- 
ing, and  the  industrious  and  well-disposed,  pass  by  these 
basement  conference-meetings,  catching  perhaps  the 
burden  of  a  psalm-tune,  but  with  no  drawings  to  dispose 
them  to  enter.  When  religious  movements  are  brought 
to  bear  upon  vigorous  young  men,  it  is  often  by  a  sort  of 
intriguing,  scheming  policy,  which  will  hardly  bear  look- 


RELIGION  ON  FALSE  PRETENCES.         341 

ing  at  very  closely.  "  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tions "  are  formed ;  but  if  we  scan  one  of  them  in  a  pro- 
cession or  a  meeting,  the  number  of  the  gray-headed 
among  them  opens  the  unpleasant  suggestion,  that  a  too 
generous  interpretation  is  given  to  the  word  young,  for 
the  sake  of  showing  force  and  strength.  Some  zealous 
ministers  will  be  debating  some  religious  or  sectarian 
project,  when  a  shrewd  one  among  them  will  suggest, 
that,  after  the  plan  has  been  agreed  upon,  it  will  be  well 
to  have  it  announced  and  carried  on  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Young  Men's  Association.  So,  after  due  prep- 
aration, the  community  is  informed  that  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association,  in  this  or  that  town  or 
city,  have  determined  upon  this  or  that.  Painful  and 
mortifying  is  it  to  a  true  lover  of  his  country,  to  learn 
how  much  of  unworthy  manoeuvring  and  blinding  arti- 
fice now  passes  under  the  title  of  "  wire-pulling."  Sad- 
der yet  is  it  to  realize,  that  something  of  the  same  inge- 
nuity, under  disguises,  is  availed  of  to  make  it  appear 
that  pure  religion  has  more  real  sway  in  the  hearts  and 
enterprises  of  men  than  it  actually  exercises.  One  re- 
sult is,  that  a  large  body  of  persons  who  claim  to  be  the 
very  leaders  and  supporters  of  movements  undeniably 
belonging  to  the  work  of  the  Christian  Church,  boast 
themselves  as  come-outers  from  it. 

Here  certainly  are  facts  which,  without  needing  the 
embitterment  of  a  sectarian  or  a  sarcastic  spirit,  con- 
vey a  severe  reproach  to  every  professed  Christian,  re- 
buking him  for  his  own  share  of  blame  for  a  state  of 
things  which  ought  not  to  exist.  We  will  not  concen- 
trate this  reproach  upon  Orthodoxy,  and  meanly  boast 
that  our  own  faith  exonerates  us  from  all  participation 
in  it.  We  feel  our  own  short-comings,  we  know  those 
of  our  own  religious  fellowship,  too  painfully,  to  allow 
even  the  intimation  that  Unitarianism  has  shamed  by  its 
vigorous  spirit  and  practice  of  benevolence  all  other 
29* 


342  THE    WORDS    OF   THIS   LIFE. 

forms  of  sectarian  Christianity.  We  may,  however,  ac- 
cept, as  affording  a  ray  of  comfort,  what  has  been  visited 
upon  us  in  censure,  —  the  fact  that  we  have  emphasized 
in  our  communion  the  duties  of  benevolence,  philanthro- 
py, practical  righteousness,  and  virtue.  When  the  Rev. 
H.  W.  Beecher  published  last  year  his  large  volume  of 
Hymns  for  Public  Worship  in  his  congregation  in  "  Ply- 
mouth Church,"  he  was  severely  assailed  by  reviewers  in 
his  own  Orthodox  communions  for  having  drawn  some 
of  his  pieces  from  Unitarian  and  other  heretical  sources. 
His  justification  was  most  significant.  He  wished  his 
book  to  embrace  hymns  adapted  for  use  on  occasions  of 
a  benevolent,  reformatory,  and  philanthropic  character,  — 
hymns  baptized  in  the  spirit  of  a  merciful,  humane,  and 
loving  faith.  For  these  he  was  compelled  to  draw  on  he- 
retical sources,  the  Orthodox  collections  not  furnishing 
the  requisite  material.  So  far  as  this  fact  avails,  we  will 
use  it,  in  closing,  not  as  a  compliment  to  heresy,  nor  for 
a  poor  boast,  but  to  plead  for  that  much-neglected  ele- 
ment in  religion,  —  that  which  includes  the  cheerful,  the 
humane,  the  genial,  the  merciful,  —  that  which  ministers 
to  man's  wants  and  woes  in  this  world,  as  well  as  opens 
the  hope  of  another. 


THE    NEW    THEOLOGY 


THE   NEW   THEOLOGY 


Much  of  the  interest  in  religious  discussions  which,  a 
half-century  ago,  was  engaged  in  the  Unitarian  Contro- 
versy, is  now  enlisted  in  the  developments  of  what  is 
called  "  The  New  Theology."  Among  communions 
nominally  adhering  still  to  the  formulas  and  doctrines  of 
Orthodoxy,  are  many  men  of  mark  and  power  whom  their 
brethren  accuse  of  heretical  tendencies.  It  is  not  strange 
that  Unitarians  should  feel  a  lively  interest  in  the  many 
developments  of  the  past  few  years  which  expose  the  ef- 
forts and  struggles  of  the  advanced  minds  in  orthodox 
communions.  They  have  produced  for  our  perusal  and 
study  many  laborious  volumes  and  many  vigorous  essays, 
laden  with  the  results  of  profound  scholarship,  and  quick- 
ened with  the  glow  of  true  piety.  In  no  age  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  has  the  current  theological  literature  been 
so  attractive  in  itself,  so  worthy  of  extended  circulation,  so 
free  from  the  poisonous  elements  of  acrimony  and  pas- 
sion, or  so  edifying  in  subject-matter  and  spirit,  as  in  our 
own  time.  We  confess  to  finding  the  materials  for  our 
own  most  profitable  hours  of  thought  and  study  in  the 
fresh  theological  utterances  of  some  noble-minded  and 
scholarly  Christian  men  who  traditionally  regard  us  as 
outside  of  the  Christian  fold.  It  might  be  said  that  our 
interest  is  only  of  that  questionable  character  which  loves 


346  LIBERALISM    OF   THE   AGE. 

to  mark  the  tokens  of  discord  or  the  signs  of  division  in 
a  hostile  camp.  We  may  be  charged  with  heresy-hunt- 
ing for  the  sake  of  finding  comfort  under  our  own  state 
of  exclusion  from  Christian  fellowship.  Of  course  there 
is  a  risk  of  that  sort  besetting  us.  We  would  endeavor 
to  appreciate  the  kindness  which  reminds  us  of  our  lia- 
bility to  it,  and  we  would  endeavor  to  reinforce  our  can- 
dor, and  to  overcome  our  own  prejudices,  that  we  may  not 
injuriously  or  uncharitably  interpret  any  generous  conces- 
sions of  Orthodoxy  as  affording  comfort  to  our  heresy. 
We  may  be  too  ready  to  claim  every  free  expression  of 
every  free  mind  as  a  discomfiture  of  our  opponents  and 
an  amicable  recognition  of  our  own  position.  But  while 
we  would  not  assume  to  be  secure  against  the  weakness 
thus  recognized,  we  are  conscious  of  a  higher  and  purer 
reason  for  our  interest  in  the  developments  of  the  New 
Theology.  We  believe  it  to  be  among  the  possibilities 
of  things,  that  the  Orthodoxy  which  we  have  rejected 
may  still  be  of  service  to  us.  We  should  be  ashamed  to 
boast  of  a  contempt  for  all  its  scholarship,  devotion,  and 
piety.  The  largest  modifications  of  religious  or  doctri- 
nal philosophy  to  which  some  orthodox  men  are  inclined 
to  yield,  still  keep  them  aloof  from  sympathy  with  us. 
We  are  bound,  therefore,  to  read  their  freest  pages  with 
the  conscientious  and  most  earnest  purpose  of  rectifying 
possible  errors  and  supplying  possible  defects  in  our  own 
theological  system  by  the  help  of  men  who  prove  their 
sincerity  alike  by  what  they  yield  in  our  favor  and  by 
what  they  retain  to  our  reproach.  We  trust  therefore 
that  our  orthodox  brethren  will  interpret  our  interest  in 
the  speculative  and  doctrinal  liberalism  of  which  their 
communions  have  recently  afforded  us  so  many  instruc- 
tive tokens,  as  attaching  but  in  part  to  our  pleasure  at 
the  discomfiture  of  Orthodoxy,  and  for  the  rest  to  our  de- 
sire to  be  made  aware  of  the  possible — we  will  even  say 
the  probable  —  defects  and  errors  of  Unitarianism.     With 


THEOLOGICAL  DEVELOPMENTS.  347 

this  introduction,  we  proceed  to  treat  of  the  New  Theol- 
ogy. We  do  not  intend  to  enter  upon  any  elaborate  ex- 
position or  any  learned  discussion  of  the  materials  which 
crowd  upon  us  in  overwhelming  abundance.  We  aim 
only  for  a  more  popular  and  simple  treatment  of  our 
subject. 

A  New  Theology  has  been  in  every  age  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  the  hope  and  the  object  of  one  party  in  its 
fold,  and  by  another  party  the  same  title  has  been  used 
for  designating  the  whole  series  of  successive  heresies 
while  in  their  incipient  state.  Till  the  rupture  takes 
place,  both  parties  claiming  a  common  orthodoxy  divide 
between  them  the  epithets  progressive  and  conservative. 
The  New  Theology  always  receives  its  first  nurture  in 
the  bosom  of  Orthodoxy.  Sometimes  its  early  training 
is  most  affectionately  fostered  by  those  who  visit  upon 
its  mature  development  the  most  bitter  hostility.  When 
what  has  thus  for  a  proper  length  of  time  been  under 
subjection  and  pupilage  manifests  itself  as  palpable  and 
full-grown  heresy,  Orthodoxy  discards  all  relationship  with 
it.  Henceforward  it  must  take  a  name,  and  the  party 
adopting  it  must  stand  by  itself,  excommunicated,  until 
time  or  strength  or  success  gives  to  it  that  assurance 
of  its  own  full  Christian  integrity  and  authority  which 
it  may  find  in  being  able  to  excommunicate  a  subordi- 
nate party  that  has  risen  up  in  its  own  fellowship.  The 
Roman  Church  for  an  indefinite  time  sheltered  a  New 
Theology,  which  in  due  course  developed  into  Protestant- 
ism. Reaching  its  maturity  and  manifesting  its  unde- 
niable heretical  qualities,  Protestantism  came  under  ex- 
communication, and  it  was  not  long  before  it  found  itself 
strong  enough  to  set  up  for  Orthodoxy  within  a  limited 
fold  and  region  of  its  own.  Then  in  turn  Orthodox  Prot- 
estantism began  to  hear  warnings  of  a  New  Theology  as 
announcing  the  aim  and  hope  of  a  party  called  Puritans. 
Puritanism,  having  reached  man's  estate,  was  offered  its 


348  THEOLOGICAL  DEVELOPMENTS. 

choice  either  to  be  chastised  into  obedience  and  submis- 
sion, or  to  be  driven  out  to  set  up  for  itself.  It  chose  to 
set  up  for  itself,  though  under  a  double  sentence  of  ex- 
communication from  pope  and  prelate.  But  still  the 
possibilities  of  novelty  in  the  field  of  Christian  theolo- 
gy were  not  exhausted.  As  sentences  of  excommunica- 
tion multiplied,  the  fear  of  that  penalty  lost  its  power  to 
overawe  free  souls.  As  the  sentence  has  been  annually 
kept  in  vigor  at  Rome  against  English  and  all  other 
Protestantism,  and  no  harm  has  ever  yet  been  known  to 
come  from  it,  it  was  hardly  likely  to  inspire  terror  when 
pronounced  by  any  communion  that  was  already  under 
its  ban.  It  would  be  as  unreasonable  to  fear  a  repetition 
of  excommunication,  as  it  would  be  to  fear  in  one's 
own  person  the  undergoing  of  successive  capital  punish- 
ments. So  Unitarianism,  which  ages  of  corruption  had 
only  kept  in  abeyance  from  a  reassertion  of  the  pure,  the 
primitive  Gospel,  was  for  a  time  the  New  Theology  in 
the  Protestant,  Reformed,  Puritan,  Independent  Ortho- 
dox Church.  Unitarianism  engaged  in  its  turn  the  in- 
terest and  excited  the  hostility  which  attend  the  last 
development  of  organized  dissent  before  it  has  been  vis- 
ited with  excommunication.  Unitarianism  attempted  to 
reduce  the  Christian  faith,  not  to  its  minimum  as  is  of- 
ten affirmed,  but  to  its  ultimatum,  by  going  back  to  the 
primitive  substance  of  the  Gospel.  There  can  be  no  fur- 
ther heresy  developed  from  Unitarianism  but  the  heresy 
of  actual  unbelief  in  revelation,  —  a  heresy,  by  the  by, 
which  is  just  as  possible,  and  which  in  fact  has  as  often 
been  realized,  under  all  the  other  forms  of  Christian  the- 
ology. 

But  when  Orthodoxy  has  rid  itself  by  processes  of  ex- 
clusion and  excommunication  of  the  successive  heresies 
which  have  developed  in  its  own  communion  into  par- 
ties capable  of  an  independent  life,  its  warfare  is  by  no 
means  ended.      Hardly  has  the  expurgated  fold  kept  its 


sir 

PROGRESSIVE  AND   POPULAR   VIEWS. 

feast  of  purification  before  its  exercises  of  humiliation 
begin  again.  Heretical  processes  will  still  go  on  within 
the  best-guarded  fold,  and  very  soon  after  it  has  exorcised 
its  avowed  traitors.  While  excommunicated  heresies 
are  frankly  labelled  with  their  own  assumed  or  imposed 
titles,  they  have  to  part  with  that  of  the  New  Theology, 
which  they  bore  before  their  ejection.  That  title  is  al- 
ways reserved  as  the  designation  of  the  undeveloped 
views  of  the  progressive  party,  the  embryo  and  in- 
cipient heretics,  the  lovers  of  novel  speculations  and 
free  thought,  who  in  due  course  of  time  will  give  evi- 
dence of  their  presence  and  industry  in  the  orthodox 
fold.  Thus  "The  New  Theology"  is  now  the  title  of 
the  more  or  less  perfectly  developed  and  avowed,  but 
not  as  yet  excommunicated  heresies,  that  are  known 
to  exist  in  those  communions  of  Christians  which  have- 
withdrawn  fellowship  from  acknowledged  Unitarians- 
and  fortified  themselves  within  their- citadels  of  nominal 
Orthodoxy. 

There  is  a  form  of  religious  faith  floating  around  the 
communities  where  Christian  thought  and  sentiment  are 
most  active,  and  giving  the  most  significant  tokens  of  its 
energetic  working  in  our  best  theological  literature,  —  to 
which  is  for  the  time  being  attached  the  title  of  "  The 
New  Theology."  Its  opponents  in  Great  Britain  have 
endeavored,  with  some  degree  of  success,  to  substitute 
the  title  of  The  Negative  Theology.  We  have  called  it 
a.  form  of  faith.  But  perhaps  that  is  too  strong  and  defi- 
nite a  term  to  be  applied  to  what  has  not  as  yet  taken 
a  distinct  shape,  or  set  itself  forth  in  clearly  stated  and 
systematic  views.  The  popular  mind  is  but  very  imper- 
fectly acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the  case,  as  these  are 
known  and  watched  by  professional  observers.  Yet,  as 
we  shall  attempt  to  show,  this  popular  mind  is  one  of 
the  chief  elements",  one  of  the  most  important  parties,  in 
the  interest  of  the  subject.  Indeed,  it  is  from  time  to 
30 


350  HERESY  UNDER  ORTHODOXY. 

time  a  matter  of  curious  speculation  with  us  how  the 
uninitiated  readers  of  the  religious  journals  of  our  or- 
thodox brethren  interpret  to  themselves  the  incidental 
and  sketchy  references  to  the  developments  so  constantly 
brought  to  their  notice.  For  instances,  take  the  follow- 
ing, selected  from  a  very  rich  budget  of  similar  cases. 
The  North  British  Review  is  established  in  the  cham- 
pionship of  Scotch  Orthodoxy,  and  with  the  design  of 
offering  able  discussions  by  the  most  competent  men  of 
subjects  which  the  other  quarterlies  treat  after  too  free 
and  heretical  a  manner.  That  Review  wins  a  large  cir- 
culation and  a  high  repute,  both  well  deserved  because 
of  its  sterling  merits.  In  successive  numbers  we  are 
treated  with  two  noble  articles  on  Missions  to  the  Hea 
then,  and  on  Dr.  Chalmers.  Running  through  both  ar 
tides,  entering  into  their  very  stamina  and  substance 
forming  indeed  the  very  point  and  pith  of  their  strength 
are  unmistakable  tokens  of  opinions  held  by  their  writ 
ers  utterly  inconsistent  with  real  orthodoxy.  These  in 
dications  are  all  the  more  significant  to  liberal  readers 
because  they  imply  and  intimate  much  more  than  they 
directly  advance,  though  their  assertions  and  positions 
are  frank  and  bold  to  a  degree  which  is  startling.  We 
read  some  of  the  pages  with  amazement  which  subsides 
into  a  calm  delight  over  these  manifest  evidences  of  pro- 
gress within  denominations  which  have  tried  every  meth- 
od to  resist  it.  Here  we  have  a  sentence  or  a  paragraph 
which  flings  actual  contempt  on  some  one  of  the  most 
positive  articles  of  the  creed ;  and  then  we  have  a  sly 
hint  or  suggestion,  the  animus  of  which  is  plainly  intend- 
ed to  convey  its  risky  suggestion  only  to  a  safe  esoteric 
circle  of  readers.  By  and  by  we  watch  to  see  how  these 
bold  utterances  will  be  received  by  the  orthodox.  The 
Review  tells  us  it  is  impious  to  suppose  or  to  proclaim 
for  the  sake  of  swelling  missionary  funds  that  the  Hea- 
then will  perish  because  they  know  not  the  Gospel.  The 


THE  RELIGIOUS  JOURNALS.  351 

Review  also  challenges  the  repute  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  con- 
fesses his  incompetency  as  a  great  Christian  advocate 
against  unbelievers,  and  affirms  the  untenableness  of  his 
view  —  the  orthodox  view  —  of  inspiration.  Some  of 
the  religious  newspapers  commend  in  general  terms  the 
contents  of  the  Review.  Others,  whose  editors  are  more 
watchful,  spy  out  these  alarming  heresies,  and  in  little 
paragraphs  of  invidious,  alarmed,  or  deprecatory  strain, 
follow  a  second-hand,  diluted,  or  unfair  report  of  them  with 
their  rebuke.  Again,  the  Orthodox  Dissenters  of  Great 
Britain  establish  monthly  and  weekly  religious  journals 
in  the  interest  of  their  cause,  and  pledged  to  defend  their 
orthodoxy.  They  try  to  select  able  men  for  editors  and 
contributors,  because  the  scholarship  and  the  literary 
standard  of  the  times  demand  that  condition  for  even 
moderate  success.  But  these  able  men  are  very  apt 
now-a-days  to  be  free,  progressive,  and  independent 
men.  As  a  natural  consequence,  these  pledged  orthodox 
journals  are  soon  found  trespassing  in  heretical  fields. 
The  cry  of  alarm  is  raised  by  men  of  second-rate  abilities 
and  of  inferior  standing,  who  however  are  better  than 
any  other  men  for  sounding  an  alarm.  The  councils  of 
the  fellowship  are  distracted,  our  own  journals  catch  up 
the  echo  of  the  strife,  and  give  a  very  partial  and  insuf- 
ficient account  of  its  occasion.  Once  more,  Andoverand 
New  Haven  dare  the  venture  of  applying  a  new  philos- 
ophy to  old  theology.  Professor  Hodge  of  Princeton  is 
on  the  watch  for  every  such  venturesome  speculator,  and 
he  reckons  with  them  forthwith  in  his  Review.  The  Old 
School  religious  newspapers  rehearse  such  portions  of  the 
questions  at  issue  as  suit  their  space,  their  idea  of  fair- 
ness, or  their  temper.  Meanwhile,  we  ask  again,  what 
think  the  uninitiated  orthodox  readers  about  these  shoot- 
ings forth  and  presages  of  the  New  Theology  ?  Some- 
thing is  going  on  evidently  which  they  do  not  compre- 
hend.    Their  leaders  and  guides   are   all   orthodox  still. 


352  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY. 

They  "are  all,  all  honorable  men."  But  they  do  not 
seem  to  understand,  or  if  they  understand,  they  do  not 
indorse,  each  other.  The  venerable  and  honored  Dr. 
Dana,  in  his  vigorous  old  age,  looks  with  a  troubled 
mind  towards  Andover,  the  fond  hope  of  unchangeable 
orthodoxy  in  his  youth.  He  is  burdened  in  spirit  by  a 
sense  of  responsibility,  but  still  he  finds  it  impossible  to 
indict  a  heresy  which  does  not  instantly  prove  an  alibi. 
Drs.  Tregelles  and  Davidson  are  employed  to  re-edit  the 
orthodox  work  of  Mr.  Home  on  the  Scriptures.  They 
are  two  of  the  most  competent  and  distinguished  Bibli- 
cal scholars  in  Great  Britain.  The  work  comes  from  their 
hands  brimful  of  such  views  and  opinions  as  have  drawn 
excommunication  on  Unitarians.  An  intense  excitement 
is  the  consequence.  The  lesser  of  the  two  heretics,  Dr. 
Tregelles,  writes  a  very  severe  letter  against  the  more 
heretical  Dr.  Davidson,  his  colleague  editor,  and  an  inci- 
dental development  proves  that  all  the  pupils  of  an  ortho- 
dox school  of  the  prophets  have  been  trained  in  most 
alarming  defections  from  the  faith  by  such  an  instructor. 
To  those  who  try  to  get  to  the  bottom,  or  who  without 
such  pains  discern  the  bottom,  of  all  these  innumerable 
tokens  of  the  restlessness,  disquietude,  and  treachery  with- 
in the  fold  of  reputed  orthodoxy,  the  philosophy  of  them 
may  be  very  simple.  But  to  the  uninitiated  they  must  be 
mystifying  and  perplexing,  especially  as  their  leaders  de- 
cline to  give  them  a  full,  fair,  and  unprejudiced  view  of 
all  the  issues  thus  opened.  Yet  it  may  be  worth  while 
for  these  leaders  and  sentinels  of  orthodoxy  to  ask  what 
the  consequences  will  be  when  some  of  these  secrets  can 
no  longer  be  kept,  and  the  heraldings  of  dawn  are  fol- 
lowed by  the  orb  of  light  itself. 

The  New  Theology  is  the  title  assigned  in  New  Eng- 
land to  those  modifications  of  Calvinism  which  were  first 
systematically  proposed  by  Edwards,  and  which  became 
perceptibly  a  trifle  neiver,  as  developed  by  Bellamy,  Hop- 


TIIE   NEWEST   THEOLOGY.  353 

kins,  West,  Benton,  Emmons,  and  others.  Those  names, 
—  which  the  orthodox  in  New  England  cherish  with  a 
homage  that  we  of  course  cannot  be  expected  to  offer, 
except  to  the  character  of  the  men,  for  their  ability, 
acuteness,  and  talent  seem  to  us  to  be  almost  absurdly 
exaggerated,  —  those  names  would  be  very  gladly  accept- 
ed by  the  friends  of  the  New  Theology  of  our  day,  as 
a  protection  for  their  heresies.  But  we  must  modernize 
that  word  New  if  it  is  to  take  in  more  recent  develop- 
ments. We  will  frankly  say,  that  we  are  not  interested 
in  what  was  the  New  Theology  of  Edwards.  We  are 
on  the  track  of  something  newer.  Not  the  nova,  but  the 
novissima,  is  what  engages  us.  A  pupil  who  should  trans- 
late novissima  luna  as  the  "new  moon"  would  need  to 
be  told  that  the  words  mean  the  moon  in  the  last  quar- 
ter. 

It  will  be  understood,  therefore,  that  we  use  the  title  of 
this  paper  as  defining  the  as  yet  not  perfectly  developed 
religious  system  of  those  who  claim  to  hold  the  substance 
of  the  old  orthodoxy,  but  who  have  essentially  modified 
its  symbolical  exposition,  the  terms  for  stating  its  ele- 
ments, and  the  philosophical  language  in  which  it  casts 
itself.  The  able  and  progressive  men  of  whose  specula- 
tions we  are  Writing  would  freely  admit  that  they  had 
gone  the  lengths  in  heresy  which  we  have  just  defined. 
Perhaps  some  of  them  who  will  stiH  claim  to  be  ortho- 
dox would  confess  to  having  gone  a  little  farther.  We 
wish,  however,  to  be  held  as  uttering  therefore  only  an 
inference  of  our  own,  not  an  admission  of  theirs,  when 
we  add  the  expression  of  our  honest  and  firm  belief,  that 
many  of  them  do  go  farther,  some  of  them  consciously, 
some  of  them  unconsciously.  We  are  convinced  that 
their  concessions  and  modifications  of  creed  reach  beyond 
the  mere  philosophy  of  orthodoxy,  and  assail  its  doctri- 
nal substance,  its  very  life.  We  will  add,  that  if  this  be 
only  a  surmise  of  our  own,  then  there  is  a  vast  deal  of 
30* 


354  TOLERANCE   OF   HERESY. 

agitation  about  nothing  in  the  debates  of  our  most  in- 
telligent divines.  The  vigorous  life,  the  interest  of  relig- 
ious thought  and  discussion,  in  our  day,  are  almost  wholly 
identified  with  the  concealed  or  avowed  divergencies  of 
belief  among  those  who  nominally  accept  the  same  creed. 
The  heretics  in  the  Church  cause  the  heretics  outside  of 
it  to  be  forgotten. 

It  may  be  asked  how  we  know  that  there  is  any  such 
restlessness  in  the  larger  ecclesiastical  folds,  any  secret 
modification  of  old  religious  opinions  working  effectually 
at  the  sources  of  thought,  though  eluding  definition  ?  We 
answer,  because  we  know  that  there  are  recognized  par- 
ties in  each  of  the  great  orthodox  communions,  because 
their  newspapers  are  blindly  discussing  some  suspected 
and  half-acknowledged  heresies  within  the  pale  of  sup- 
posed uniformity,  and  because  the  more  able  men,  the 
leaders  of  thought,  especially  some  of  the  teachers  in 
the  most  flourishing  theological  seminaries,  are  well  un-' 
derstood  to  have  essential  differences  with  each  other.  It 
may  not  perhaps  be  spoken  of  as  a  matter  of  common 
notoriety,  but  all  those  who  would  be  likely  to  know 
are  very  well  aware  that  there  are  doctrinal  divis- 
ions with  which  tolerance  is  compelled  to  bear,  because 
policy  forbids  a  rupture  in  reference  to  them.  Here- 
tics have  learned  to  cling  to  their  own  native  folds. 
They  do  not  go  off  as  they  once  did.  They  are  not 
driven  off  so  summarily  as  they  once  were.  Ecclesias- 
tical discipline,  once  so  bold  and  incessant  in  applying 
its  tests,  has  become  very  forbearing ;  because  of  this 
reason  among  others,  that  it  fears  to  encounter  the  work 
which  might  possibly  lead  on  from  a  venturesome  begin- 
ning. There  is  infinitely  more  material  for  such  discipline 
now  than  there  ever  was  before.  Many  members  of  the 
English  Church,  who  from  time  to  time  utter  themselves 
upon  the  feuds  which  now  distract  it,  maintain  that  the 
real  wisdom  and  sufficiency  of  its  principles  are  for  the 


THE   SCIENCE   OF   DIVINITY.  355 

first  time  put  to  the  trial  in  the  comprehensiveness  under 
which  it  embraces  all  the  creeds  and  all  the  scepticisms 
that  prevail  in  Christendom.  This  opinion  startles  some 
of  the  living,  but  we  apprehend  that  the  true  test  of  it 
would  be  —  if  it  admitted  of  the  application  —  to  imag- 
ine some  of  the  departed  victims  of  the  old  intolerance 
of  that  Church  to  be  summoned  from  their  graves  and 
treated  with  the  gentle  announcement  of  that  plea.  That 
certainly  is  the  newest  doctrine  of  our  times. 

The  question  now  presents  itself,  —  What  scope  or 
material  is  there  for  anything  that  can  be  fairly  called 
"  A  New  Theology  "  ?  How  can  the  old,  worn  ways  of 
thought,  the  wrinkles  in  the  world's  weary  brows,  be 
made  fresh  again,  so  that  they  will  receive  a  new  im- 
press ?  How  can  the  formulas  of  faith  be  converted  to  the 
uses  of  a  new  theological  creed  ?  Especially,  if  this  ques- 
tion concerns  robust  and  honest  minds,  and  is  to  be  pur- 
sued under  the  limiting  condition  that  the  New  Theology 
is  substantially  the  Old  Theology,  —  how  can  we  expect  a 
reward  for  our  pains  in  trying  to  track  the  shape  of  new 
impressions  on  these  old  ways  ?  We  must  now  sharpen 
our  vision. 

Theology  is  the  oldest  of  human  sciences.  The  epi- 
thet human  belongs  as  justly  to  it  as  it  does  to  any  of 
the  sciences;  for  though  the  themes  of  theology  are 
divine,  its  forms  and  methods  and  processes  are  sub- 
jected to  precisely  the  same  limitations,  through  our 
finite  and  fallible  minds,  as  are  attached  to  the  pursuit  of 
either  of  the  departments  of  human  inquiry.  Theology 
is  the  human  term  for  expressing  the  science  of  divinity. 
It  covers  all  man's  thought,  philosophy,  and  theory  about 
the  things  of  God.  We  call  it  the  oldest  of  all  the  sci- 
ences, not  only  because  it  enters  into  the  first  records  of 
the  thought  and  history  of  our  race,  but  also  because  every 
science  which  might  aspire  to  an  earlier  date  would  be 
sure  to  involve  the  theological  views  of  the  minds  whose 


356  PROGRESSIVE   THEOLOGY. 

observations  on  nature,  on  life,  or  on  man  it  compre- 
hended. 

But  what  is  thus  found  to  be  the  oldest  of  sciences 
has  been  described  by  two  extreme  classes  of  those  in- 
terested in  it  under  two  most  inconsistent  epithets.  One 
class  has  pronounced  it  to  be  unprogressive,  making  no 
advance  upon  the  elemental  substance  or  materials  with 
which  it  first  started,  as  the  first  generation  exhausted 
its  discoveries  and  recognized  all  its  insoluble  problems. 
Another  class  of  students  comprehends  those  who, 
whether  with  boasting  or  complaint,  allege  that  theology- 
is  a  progressive,  unstable  science,  never  permanently  set- 
tled on  its  foundation,  and  continually  changing  in  its 
substance  as  well  as  in  its  terminology. 

Every  Christian  age  has  had  to  recognize  something 
which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  has  been  called  "  A  New 
Theology."  The  phrase  is  suggestive  to  some  of  all  that 
is  quickening  and  cheering  in  the  evidence  of  progress, 
—  progress  in  the  discovery  of  truth,  in  every  province 
of  human  interest.  To  others  the  phrase  is  synonymous 
with  heresy,  and  what  is  signified  by  it  is  a  fright  and  a 
bugbear.  But  can  we  hesitate  to  call  theology  a  pro- 
gressive science  ?  It  certainly  deserves  the  epithet  pro- 
gressive if  it  deserves  the  title  of  a  science.  How  can 
it  be  otherwise  than  progressive,  seeing  that  it  is  cumu- 
lative, that  it  is  built  up  out  of  theories,  that  it  arrays 
men  in  contending  schools  of  opinion,  and  makes  every 
independent  thinker  upon  it  an  independent  theorist? 
Of  course  we  must  allow  for  the  fact,  which  is  merely 
disguised  in  the  familiar  trick  of  language  that  ascribes 
to  the  theme  of  our  thoughts  the  modifications  which 
actually  are  made  only  in  our  own  opinions.  When  we 
say  that  theology  is  a  progressive  science,  we  mean  that 
men  make  progress  in  their  dealing  with  subjects  essen- 
tially unchangeable,  in  their  theories  about  truths  which 
were  perfect  and  assured  before  a  single  human  mind 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION.  357 

engaged  upon  them.  In  this  sense,  theology  has  proved 
to  be  the  most  progressive  of  all  sciences.  More  start- 
ling revolutions  of  human  opinion  are  to  be  traced  in 
connection  with  man's  views  of  the  Divine  nature,  attri- 
butes, and  government,  than  are  to  be  recognized  as 
wrought  in  his  views  of  the  physical  universe  by  all  the 
amazing  discoveries  and  processes  in  the  crowded  cyclo- 
paedias of  natural  philosophy.  And  in  fact  the  progress 
of  the  natural  sciences  has  been  the  most  effective 
agency  in  modifying  theological  opinions,  in  subverting 
dogmas  and  doctrines  of  a  venerable  authority,  and  in 
compelling  each  generation  of  human  beings,  as  it  ad- 
vanced in  civilization  and  knowledge,  to  find  a  higher 
method,  a  nobler  argument,  for  vindicating  the  ways  of 
God  to  men.  Theology,  as  a  science,  bears  down  with 
it  from  age  to  age  all  that  made  its  themes  interesting 
to  the  first  thinkers,  and  all  that  was  added  to  it  by  their 
speculations  upon  it.  Originally,  theology  was  the  sci- 
ence of  Divinity.  It  is  that  still,  and  is  besides  the 
science  of  man's  speculations  and  opinions  and  theories 
upon  its  own  original  materials.  The  discussion  of 
Bible  doctrines  is  now  hopelessly  complicated  with  phi- 
losophy. All  in  vain,  as  respects  the  weight  of  his 
warning  beyond  its  probable  effect  on  his  young  disciple, 
did  St.  Paul  warn  Timothy  against  u  striving  about 
words  to  no  profit," —  against  "  foolish  questions  which 
gender  strifes."  No  age  after  that  of  Timothy  has 
heeded  the  warning.  Men  cannot  do  without  a  philoso- 
phy of  religion,  and  all  attempts  to  disconnect  religion 
and  philosophy  have  utterly  failed,  while  those  who  have 
most  strenuously  argued  for  a  doctrinal  system  nomi- 
nally drawn  from  the  Bible,  and  as  authoritative  in  defi- 
ance of  all  philosophy,  have  beeji  compelled  to  adopt  a 
philosophy  of  their  own  in  the  conduct  of  their  argu- 
ment. 

Religion  brings  down  with  it  from  all  past  ages,  not 


358  TRADITIONS   OF  RELIGION. 

only  the  records  which  to  those  who  receive  them  hkve 
a  more  or  less  decided  authority  of  infallibility  and 
inspiration,  but  it  comes  also  laden  with  the  precious  or 
questionable  burden  of  tradition.  They  may  be  theoret- 
ically right  who  assert  that  their  Christian  liberty  makes 
them  wholly  independent  of  tradition,  as  challenging 
authority  with  them  in  matters  of  faith.  But  it  is  one 
thing  to  claim  that  immunity,  and  wholly  another  thing 
to  form  our  own  views  under  an  absolute  freedom  from 
the  influence  of  tradition.  Tradition  passes  into  the 
forms  of  language,  into  words  and  idioms  and  phrases, 
into  versions  and  translations  from  one  tongue  into 
another.  There  are  expressions,  yes,  sentences  even,  in 
our  English  Bible,  which,  in  their  variations  from  the 
exact  meaning  of  the  original,  carry  with  them  more 
effectively  a  traditional  construction  or  authority  in  the 
teaching  of  doctrine,  than  do  any  of  the  most  positive 
decrees  of  the  old  councils,  or  any  of  the  most  absolute 
decisions  of  ecclesiastical  tribunals.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  the  influence  of  tradition  in  doctrine  and  opinion, 
and  in  its  associations  with  the  Scriptures  and  their  con- 
tents, is  the  larger  element  in  the  faith  of  even  the  most 
ultra  Protestants. 

Religion  brings  down  with  it  from  past  ages  some  old 
covenants,  creeds,  and  formulas,  and  when  religion  is 
arrayed  and  set  forth  with  this  traditional  garb,  it  be- 
comes theology.  These  covenants,  creeds,  and  formulas 
are  of  earthly  fabrication.  They  become  time-worn  and 
rusty,  they  get  rent  and  moth-eaten ;  they  need  patch- 
ing;  they  fade,  they  become  thin,  they  are  outgrown; 
the  faith  of  the  last  days  cannot  adapt  itself  to  them. 
The  Christian  Church  has  always  had  to  concern  itself 
with  two  very  distinct  .matters,  the  one  being  religion, 
the  other  being  the  philosophy  of  religion.  About 
religion  Christians  have  never  had  a  single  dispute  or 
variance  among  themselves,  except  on  one  point ;  and 


MODIFICATION   OF  THEOLOGY.  359 

that  has  been  prolific  beyond  all   statement  in  debate 
and  strife,  namely,  as  to  how  religion  is  involved  with 
the  philosophy  of  religion,  that  is,  with  theology,  —  with 
an  intellectual  system  or  theory  of  doctrines.     Theology 
means  and  includes  man's   speculations  and  opinions 
about  God,  and  the  things  of  God,  his  being,  his  nature, 
his  will,  his  revelations,  his  relations  with  humanity,  his 
work  in  Christ.     There  never  has  been  an  hour  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  when,  among  those  who  received 
the   Scriptures  as  authoritative  in  their  religion,  there 
has  not  been  difference  of  opinion  on  all  these  subjects 
which    constitute   theology.      When    sufficient   interest 
has  been  felt  in  these  differences  of  opinion  to  prompt  to 
an  utterance  of  them,  there  has  been  controversy.     Then 
come  into  use  such  terms  as  "the  old  theology,"  and 
"  the  new  theology."     "  The  new  theology  "  has  various 
synonymes,  heresy  being  the  one  most  in  use  and  most 
readily  spoken.     The  title  has  been  borne,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  all  the  successive  modifications  of  opinion  which 
have  manifested  themselves  within  the  fold  called  for 
the  time  being  that  of  orthodoxy.     It  is  among  the  very 
last  of  the  conditions  requisite  for  the  use  of  this  title 
that  there  should  be  absolute,  or  even  relative,  novelty  in 
the  views  to  which  it  is  attached.     On  the  contrary,  the 
most  startling  and  striking  developments  made  under 
a  fresh  modification  of  theological  opinions  have  gen- 
erally been  but  a  revival  or  reassertion  of  some  very  old, 
and   often    of   primitive   opinions.     When   the   wrong- 
headed  conservatives  of  established  error  at  the  time  of 
the  Reformation  wished  for  a  sharp  epithet  of  reproach 
to  visit  upon  the  rising  zeal  for  the  study  of  the  Greek 
literature,  they  called  it  "  the  new  learning  "  ;  forgetting 
that  their  Latin  and  Teutonic  tongues  had  to  translate 
from  Hellenic  sources  not  only  the  text  of  their  Scrip- 
tures, but  also  the  terms  and  processes  of  their  philoso- 
phy.   'The  newest  opinions  of  the  wisest  Christian  theo- 


360  METAPHYSICAL  THEOLOGY. 

logians  often  prove  to  be  a  more  pretentious  exposition 
of  the  simple  views  advanced  by  those  who  were  first 
trained  in  the  school  of  Christ.  The  great  interest  with 
which  liberal  Christian  scholars  and  theologians  watch 
the  ever-restless  speculations  of  all  the  more  vigorous 
minds  in  the  orthodox  communions  is  to  be  accounted 
solely  to  an  expectation  that  primitive  and  simple  truth 
will  thus  be  reasserted.  We  do  not  look  for  the  striking 
out  of  a  single  ray  of  new  truth  in  theology.  Our 
highest  hope  is  that  the  murky  darkness  with  which 
orthodox  philosophy  has  obscured  the  light  of  simple 
Gospel  verities  may  be  scattered  by  the  agitations  raised 
in  the  world  of  opinion.  Time  was  when  Unitarianism 
was  called  "the  new  theology."  Orthodoxy,  having  cast 
that  heresy  out  of  its  communion,  uses  some  other  title 
to  designate  our  views,  and  reserves  the  phrase  for  appli- 
cation to  such  of  its  own  heresies  as  have  not  yet  been 
visited  with  the  extreme  penalty  of  excommunication. 

We  have  intimated  that  what  is  called  "  the  popular 
mind"  is  especially  concerned  in  the  development  of  the 
new  theology.  It  may  be  taken  as  an  axiom  in  the 
history  of  religious  opinions,  that  all  which  tends  to 
complicate  and  pervert  theology  by  abstruse  and  un- 
scriptural  philosophy  has  come  from  the  brains  of  pro- 
fessed theologians,  while  all  the  influences  which  tend 
to  the  restoration  of  the  primitive  simplicity  of  our  faith 
find  their  full  sympathy  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  those 
whose  best  wisdom  is  common  sense.  When  Protes- 
tantism first  won  possession  of  a  free  Bible,  it  received 
with  it  a  philosophy  of  religion  which  prejudiced  an 
intelligent  study  and  interpretation  of  it.  That  philoso- 
phy of  religion  has  ever  since  complicated  the  faith  of 
men,  and  when  the  reception  of  it  has  been  identified 
with  a  belief  in  the  revelation  whose  substantial  truths 
it  is  intended  to  epitomize,  it  has  exposed  a  religious 
belief  to  all  the  risks  consequent  upon  the  action  of  the 


xMETAPIIYSICAL  THEOLOGY.  361 

mind.  When  religion  is  dispensed  by  its  teachers  to 
their  pupils  in  connection  with  a  philosophical  theology, 
the  intellectual  element  will  always  be  more  excited 
than  the  spiritual.  So  long  as  the  mass  of  people  of 
ordinary  culture  and  intelligence  can  be  interested  in 
the  metaphysics  of  divinity,  they  may  be,  content  to 
refer  the,  perplexities  of  an  orthodox  creed  to  the  difficul- 
ties they  might  reasonably  expect  to  find  in  the  intricate 
processes  of  philosophy.  But  the  moment  they  insist 
upon  having  a  religious  creed  which  shall  stand  clear  of 
the  more  involved  problems  of  metaphysics,  then  they 
demand  that  what  they  are  asked  to  believe  shall  be 
reconciled  with  reason  and  common  sense.  It  is  not  so 
easy  for  them  to  indicate  the  defects  and  the  unscientific 
qualities  in  poor  metaphysics,  as  it  is  for  them  to  appre- 
ciate unreasonable,  inconsistent,  or  incredible  elements 
in  a  simple  religious  creed.  Now  we  understand  the 
facts  of  the  case  to  be  precisely  these.  Intelligent  cul- 
ture and  activity  of  fhought  in  practical  directions  have 
induced  the  result  that  the  mass  of  people  who  crave  a 
religious  faith  and  hope  demand  a  better  philosophy  of 
religion ;  or,  as  the  matter  more  correctly  stands  in  their 
view,  that  religion  should  be  distinguished  and  separated 
from  metaphysics.  Let  a  devout-hearted  but  clear- 
minded  and  inquisitive  man,  longing  for  the  elements  of 
a  religious  life  to  come  to  him  from  God  in  as  simple 
and  available  a  form  as  light,  air,  and  water,  meet  with 
the  following  sentence,  for  instance,  from  the  pen  of  the 
Old  School  Dr.  Hodge  :  "  A  man  may  be  justly  account- 
able for  acts  which  are  determined  by  his  character, 
whether  that  character  or  inward  state  be  inherited, 
acquired,  or  induced  by  the  grace  of  God."  *  If  that 
sentence  does  not  prove  a  poser  even  to  the  clearest 
brains,  our  own  brains  are  not  trustworthy  for  judgment. 

*  Princeton  Review,  Januarv,  1857,  p.  135. 

31 


362  POPULAR   WORKINGS    OF   FAITH. 

How  long  divines  can  expect  to  carry  the  faith  of  com- 
mon men  with  them  when  they  write  such  things  as 
that,  is  one  of  the  questions  for  our  new  theology  to 
dispose  of.  But  no  man  would  dare  to  write  such  a 
sentence  were  it  not  for  his  confidence  in  the  unbounded 
facilities  furnished  ■  him  by  metaphysics,  by  his  philoso- 
phy of  religion,  for  evading  the  common-sense  inference 
from  it,  —  which  is,  that  God,  guided  by  what  men 
recognize  as  justice,  may  entail  a  wicked  character  like 
a  physical  disease  upon  a  child  of  his,  and  then  punish 
him  for  its  irresistible  outgrowth  into  wicked  actions. 
Such  a  sentence  is  admirably  adapted  to  remind  us  of 
the  large  indebtedness  of  orthodoxy  to  metaphysics  for 
its  boldness  in  advancing  the  most  outrageous  doctrines 
smothered  up  in  technical  language.  A  leading  new 
theology  divine  lays  down  these  three  distinctive  princi- 
ples :  "  that  sin  consists  in  choice ;  that  our  natural 
power  is  equal  to  our  duty ;  and  that  our  duty  is  limited 
by  our  natural  power."  Here  is  'common  sense.  To 
Dr.  Hodge,  however,  it  is  deadly  heresy.  Yet  he  would 
not  venture  to  assert  the  opposite  of  either  of  these 
statements  in  plain,  positive  language,  which  admitted 
of  no  metaphysical  mystification.  The  demand  of  "the 
popular  mind"  is  now  that  religion  be  divorced  from 
metaphysical  subtilties.  Scholars  of  course  interpret 
this  demand  as  requiring  a  better  system  of  metaphysics, 
a  new  philosophy  of  the  doctrines  of  revelation.  While 
we  may  look  with  but  a  partially  satisfied  curiosity  to 
discover  the  precise  shape  and  amount  and  degree  of 
the  modifications  which  leading  minds  in  orthodox  com- 
munions have  introduced  for  softening  the  sharp  features 
of  their  system,  we  have  another  means  of  information, 
very  instructive  if  we  use  it  wisely.  We  may  consult 
the  popular  tendencies,  the  actual  state  of  minds  among 
independent  thinkers  in  the  community  at  large.  The 
new  theology  has  a  strong  hold  upon   the  convictions 


AIM    OF   THE   NEW   THEOLOGY.  363 

and  sympathies  of  large  numbers  around  us.  Unde- 
fined it  may*be  in  these  minds,  as  in  the  minds  or  the 
essays  of  prominent  teachers,  but  still  it  is  sufficiently 
apprehended  to  be  available  as  a  creed  of  living  faith 
and  cheering  hope,  and  as  a  ransom  from  a  night-mare 
oppression  which  else  would  weigh  upon  the  spirit. 
Our  own  convictions  extend  to  the  length  of  a  firm 
belief  that,  within  the  shattered  and  no  longer  defensible 
intrenchments  of  disabled  orthodoxy,  there  is  under 
training  a  party  which  sooner  or  later  will  affiliate  with 
another  party,  now  outside  of  the  fold,  to  prove  the  main 
reliance  of  the  Church  when  shams  and  conformities  and 
traditions  must  sink  into  ruin. 

The  new  theology  then  starts  with  the  honest  and 
generous  purpose  of  reconstructing  the  philosophical 
method  for  the  statement  and  explication  of  the  doc- 
trines of  revelation.  It  assumes  that  the  doctrines  long 
recognized  as  orthodox  are  substantially  true  and  Scrip- 
tural. It  flatters  itself  with  the  thought  that  orthodoxy 
is  prejudiced  to  many  serious  and  intelligent  minds,  not 
because  of  anything  really  inconsistent  or  unreasonable 
in  its  doctrines,  when  rigidly  tested  by  the  laws  of 
Divine  truth  or  the  human  understanding,  but  solely 
because  of  its  metaphysical  exposition.  It  cherishes  the 
hope  that,  by  recasting  or  reconstructing  the  philosophy 
of  the  old  creed,  its  sway  may  be  retained  and  largely 
extended  even  to  the  winning  of  the  allegiance  of  its 
open  assailants.  Whether  the  new  theology  can  thus 
spend  all  its  energies  upon  the  philosophy  of  the  creed, 
and  yet  spare  the  creed,  is  the  question  of  chief  interest 
to  us.  If  our  friends  who  are  engaged  in  this  generous 
enterprise  can  feel  perfectly  at  ease  on  that  point,  and 
can  find  an  equivalent  interest  in  watching  the  experi- 
ment for  reconciling  us  to  the  creed  through  a  new 
philosophy  of  it,  we  see  no  reason  why  we  cannot 
amicably  afford  to  sustain  our  present  relations,  and  to 


364  LIMITATIONS   OF  UNITARIANISM. 

divide  our  hope  for  the  future.  The  new  school  divines 
think  that,  by  recasting  the  philosophy  of  orthodoxy  and 
reconstructing  its  formulas  for  the  statement  of  the  sub- 
stance of  its  old  truth,  they  can  meet  all  that  is  reason- 
able or  plausible  in  our  objections  to  orthodoxy  as  a  fair 
exponent  of  Christian  doctrine.  We  think  that  these 
divines  cannot  consistently  pursue  the  processes  involved 
in  their  undertaking,  much  less  bring  it  to  a  conclusion 
which  will  satisfy  us,  or  even  themselves,  without  intro- 
ducing essential  modifications  into  the  substance  of  the 
orthodox  creed.  Now  this  issue  is  worthy  of  our  age, 
and  of  the  scholarship  the  sincerity,  the  piety  which  is 
to  try  it.  Let  it  be  honorably  and  faithfully  contested. 
Let  him  be  considered  as  putting  himself  outside  of  the 
lists  of  this  fair  Christian  contest  who  introduces  into 
the  conduct  of  it  a  mean  motive,  or  a  word  of  bitter 
invective.  For  our  part,  we  are  willing  to  admit  that 
Unitarianisrn,  as  it  has  been  set  forth  by  its  ablest  expos- 
itors, has  not  approved  itself  to  all  who  have  been  com- 
petent to  test  it  as  an  adequate  doctrinal  summary  of 
Christian  truth  ;  nor  as  an  exhaustive  transcript  of  the 
essence  of  the  religion  of  the  Bible  ;  nor  as  a  fair  ex- 
ponent of  the  phraseology  of  Scripture  ;  nor  even  as  a 
system  which  can  draw  and  engage  the  religious  sym- 
pathies of  large  numbers  of  persons  of  various  culture 
and  temperament  in  the  great  offices  of  Christian  piety. 
As  we  said  in  the  first  of  this  series  of  papers,  so  we  say 
in  this,  which  is  the  last,  something  has  proved  to  be 
lacking  in  Unitarianisrn.  It  is  true  that  we  can  give 
plausible  explanations  of  its  supposed  deficiencies,  or  lack 
of  adaptation  to  a  great  variety  of  intellectual  constitu- 
tions or  spiritual  temperaments.  We  may  say  that  the 
severe  simplicity  of  its  doctrinal  system  is  above  the 
comprehension  and  offensive  to  the  tastes  of  many ;  or 
that  the  prejudiced  hearing  which  it  addresses,  or  its 
inability  to  cope  with  rival  systems  more  attractive  to 


LIBERAL   ORTHODOXY.  365 

the  mass  of  persons  and  more  in  harmony  with  the  tra- 
ditions of  piety,  stands  in  the  way  of  its  fair  and  de- 
served acceptance.  But  the  facts  of  the  case,  however 
explained,  are  facts  still.  While  the  defects  and  short- 
comings and  failures  of  orthodoxy,  and  the  amount  of 
positive  evil  which  is  directly  chargeable  upon  it,  are 
matters  which  we  have  had  occasion  most  painfully  to 
know  and  deplore,  we  make  no  boast  for  ourselves  or 
for  our  own  system.  Well,  therefore,  may  we  watch 
with  a  generous  interest  the  issue  whether  the  nobler 
spirits  of  a  nominal  orthodoxy  can  make  such  modifica- 
tions in  it  as  will  satisfy  them  and  reclaim  us.  Nor  will 
we  be  churlish  about  words.  We  will  allow  that  good 
word  substance  its  largest  possible  meaning,  when  a  man 
who  we  think  believes  essentially  as  we  do  affirms  that 
he  holds  the  substance  of  orthodoxy.  But  still  there  are 
certain  rights  vested  in  dictionaries,  and  substance  must 
always  be  supposed  to  mean  some  part  of  the  thing  to 
which  it  is  applied,  and  the  substantial  part  of  it  too. 
We  may  say  to  our  orthodox  brethren,  in  the  spirit  of 
Christian  candor,  that  never  does  a  humble  distrust  of 
our  own  possible  error  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  present  itself  with  such  a  religious 
earnestness  to  our  minds,  as  when  we  read  the  writings 
of  progressive  men  in  their  ranks.  Their  manly  sincer- 
ity, their  intellectual  strength,  their  independence  of 
soul,  their  fidelity  to  conscience  in  their  protests  against 
some  part  of  orthodoxy,  give  a  new  warrant  to  the  por- 
tion of  it  which  they  retain.  But  we  can  conceive  of 
nothing  more  utterly  ineffective,  hopeless,  or  dismal, 
than  the  pleadings  of  the  old  school  divines  of  our  day 
in  defence  of  their  antiquated  system. 

It  will  be  understood,  therefore,  from  our  remarks  thus 

far,  that  what  we  are  writing  of  under  the  title  of  the 

New  Theology  is  not  a  well-defined,  consistent  system  of 

qualified  or  modified  orthodoxy,  which  can  be  gathered 

31* 


366  CLERICAL   SCEPTICISM. 

out  of  the  published  opinions  of  one  or  more  eminent 
men.     We  shall  doubtless  have  something  of  that  sort 
before  long,  and  we  hope  that  we  may  be  living  to  wel- 
come it.     No  one  orthodox  writer  has  as  yet  ventured 
to  give  form  and  shape  to  a  set  of  formulas  whose  lan- 
guage varies  from  those  long  received  so  far  as  to  ex- 
press the  new  philosophy  of  religion.     So  we  have  to 
use  the  title  of  this  article  to  designate  an  undeveloped, 
unsystematized  class  of  speculations,  fragmentary  por- 
tions of  which  are  to  be  found  in  a  great  many  publica- 
tions, intimations   of  which  are  continually  presenting 
themselves  in  unsuspected  quarters,  and  suspicions  of 
which  are  known  to  be  far  more  widely  entertained,  and 
on   better  evidence,  than   some  who   are   concerned   in 
them  care  to  have  made  public.     This,  at  least,  we  are 
warranted  in  saying,  that,  if  some  of  our  more  acute 
and  earnest  theologians  are  not  profoundly  exercised  by 
a  sceptical  spirit  in  reference  to  their  own  orthodoxy, 
they  are  trifling  with  the  community,  and,  what  is  more, 
with  truth.     Clerical  scepticism  is  the  root  of  much  of 
our  present  religious  agitation.     Men  in  the  maturity  of 
their  intellectual  powers,  and  with  the  best  aids  of  good 
scholarship,  set  to  defend  and  to  preach  the  Gospel,  find 
themselves  struggling  painfully  within  the  fetters  of  the 
creed  by  which  they  have  pledged  themselves.     To  ac- 
cept it  in  its  own  plain  sense,  is  to  them  an  utter  impos- 
sibility.    They  cannot,  they  do  not,  believe  it  in  its  tra- 
ditional   sense,   or   in    its    popular   acceptation.      They 
know  that  the  belief  which  it  once  expressed,  the  belief 
which  fashioned  the  stiff  and  positive  terms  of  the  creed 
simply  for  the  sake  of  expressing  itself,  has  not  the  hold 
upon  the  living  convictions   of    Christendom  which  it 
once  had.     The  suggestion  comes  to  their  minds,  that 
perhaps  the  substance  of  the  old  doctrines  may  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  hard  and  discredited  formulas  used 
for  stating  them.     What  Dr.  Bushnell  calls  "  the  deep- 


MODERN   RELIGIOUS   LITERATURE.  367 

est  chemistry  of  thought,"  is  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
perplexity.  The  creed  is  subjected  to  a  powerful  solvent 
in  the  mind.  That  process  it  cannot  bear  without  suf- 
fering decomposition.  The  part  of  it  which  is  digested 
and  made  to  pass  into  the  spiritual  system  is  then  pro- 
nounced "  the  substance  of  the  old  doctrine."  It  ought 
rather,  and  more  honestly,  to  be  called  the  substance  of 
what  was  true  in  the  doctrine,  for  when  fair  and  candid 
men  have  thoroughly  tried  this  experiment,  they  are  apt 
rather  to  need  and  seek  for  the  substance  of  truth  in  a  doc- 
trine, than  for  the  substance  of  the  doctrine  itself.  Cler- 
ical scepticism  is  a  disease  under  which  thousands  have 
suffered  who  have  not  proclaimed  it,  nor,  perhaps,  mani- 
fested the  symptoms.  But  when  any  professed  ortho- 
dox scholar  undertakes  to  soften  the  terms  of  his  creed, 
or  to  avail  himself  of  the  ambiguities  of  language  for 
evading  its  unreasonable  or  unscriptural  dogmas,  the 
symptoms  of  his  inner  state  are  not  to  be  mistaken. 
Now  we  say,  without  any  fear  of  being  challenged  for 
the  assertion,  that  the  best  works  in  Biblical  criticism 
and  exposition,  the  most  vigorous  essays  on  religious 
themes,  the  articles  of  highest  character  in  the  religious 
quarterlies  at  home  and  abroad,  the  most  able  sermons, 
and  all  the  other  utterances  of  the  most  scholarly,  ear- 
nest, devout,  and  effective  men  in  the  various  orthodox 
communions,  indicate  opinions  and  a  spirit  more  or  less 
inconsistent  with  the  formulas  of  their  creed.  Take 
this  select  religious  literature  and  compare  its  contents, 
page  by  page,  with  the  writings  of  the  old  standard  or- 
thodox divines,  and  the  contrast  will  amaze  any  reader. 
We  will  not  transgress  the  rule  of  charity,  and  therefore 
we  will  explain  our  charge  of  the  infidelity  of  orthodox 
men  to  orthodoxy  as  meaning  this,  —  that,  if  we  avowed 
ourselves  to  be  believers  in  the  substance  of  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Westminster  Assembly's  Catechism  or  of  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  we  could  not,  in  consistency  with 


368  PRINCETON   DIVINITY. 

religious  or  intellectual  honesty,  write  or  preach  what 
we  find  in  the  contents  of  a  hundred  valuable  volumes 
now  lying  within  our  reach,  bearing  the  names  of  di- 
vines in  the  American  Congregational  and  the  English 
Episcopal  churches. 

If  any  one  should  ask  in  what  single  volume  he 
may  find  the  most  of  general  or  particular  information 
upon  this  latent  and  undeveloped  heresy  of  "  New  The- 
ology," we  should  have  to  refer  him  to  a  volume  written 
by  its  ablest  and  most  resolute  and  unflinching  oppo- 
nent. Dr.  Hodge  of  Princeton  is  now  the  most  dis- 
tinguished defender  of  the  old  school  divinity.  Man- 
fully and  consistently,  with  his  whole  heart's  zeal,  with 
an  honesty  which  we  must  respect,  and  a  power  which 
those  against  whom  he  exerts  it  have  to  fear,  does  he 
take  up  the  gauntlet  thrown  down  by  every  nominally 
orthodox  man  who  ventures  to  try  his  liberal  philosophy 
on  the  Calvinistic  creed.  We  think  that  in  every  such 
case,  starting,  of  course,  on  orthodox  premises,  he  has 
won  a  fair  and  honorable  triumph  over  his  opponents. 
He  has  recently  published  a  stout  volume,  in  which  he 
collects  his  Essays  and  Reviews.  There  is  in  them 
strength,  courage,  acuteness,  exact  metaphysical  skill, 
and  sound  doctrinal  teaching,  —  sound,  we  mean,  ac- 
cording to  the  creed,  not  according  to  the  Scriptures. 
All  the  New  School  men  who  have  ventured  to  publish 
their  heresies  pass  under  his  reckoning  in  separate  pa- 
pers. Dr.  Cox's  heresy  on  Regeneration,  Professor  Stu- 
art's on  Imputation,  Dr.  Beman's  on  the  Atonement, 
Professor  Finney's  on  several  doctrines,  Dr.  Bushnell's 
on  Christian  Nurture,  the  Trinity,  and  the  Double  Na- 
ture of  Christ,  and  Professor  Park's  on  Rhetorical  and 
Logical  Theology,  are  all  lucidly  discussed,  and  the 
views  of  their  respective  authors  are  fairly  proved  to  be 
inconsistent  with  the  formulas  of  orthodoxy.  Now  if 
any  one  tells  us  that  the  Princeton  Professor  is  fighting 


OLD   AND   NEW   DIVINITY.  369 

only  shadows,  or  has  spent  so  much  strength  upon  the 
mere  verbal  technicalities  which  do  not  concern  the  sub- 
stance of  the  doctrine,  he  will  cast  but  a  poor  reflection 
upon  the  best  efforts  of  the  ablest  men  among  us.  We 
stand  by  the  Professor,  for  he  stands  by  us,  and  he  veri- 
fies what  our  own  common  sense  teaches  us,  that  the 
rebellion  of  free  though  devout  minds  against  the  creed 
of  orthodoxy  has  carried  them  far  beyond  the  lawful 
limits  of  metaphysical  speculation  or  philosophical  ex- 
planation, and  has  made  them  treacherous  to  the  creed 
with  whose  fair,  honest,  well-understood  teachings  or- 
thodoxy stands  or  falls.  We  cannot  believe  that  this 
strife  between  the  masters  of  Christian  science  is  mere 
child's  play.  It  is  a  manly  conflict,  and  some  new 
views  enter  into  the  challenge. 

And  the  real  aim  of  the  champions  of  this  New  The- 
ology is  a  noble  and  a  generous  one.  They  have  all 
our  sympathy,  while  we  yield  to  their  opponent  only  our 
conviction  that  he  is  more  consistent  than  they.  Their 
object  is  to  redeem  Christian  truth  from  metaphysical 
perplexity  ;  to  shape  the  dogmas  of  the  creed  into  as- 
sertions of  faith  which  will  bear  to  be  uttered  in  this 
modern  age  of  time ;  to  affirm  as  doctrines  only  such 
positive  statements  of  great,  solemn  verities  as  will  bear 
to  be  looked  at  in  the  light  of  common  sense,  and  pro- 
fessed without  the  blush  of  insincerity,  and  offered  to 
earnest,  longing  minds  without  calling  out  a  protest  from 
the  heart.  These  men  know  that  all  manner  of  pallia- 
tions, evasions,  and  apologies  have  to  be  offered  in  con- 
nection with  anything  like  a  hopeful  effort  to  propound 
the  orthodox  creed  to  the  clear-headed,  the  mature,  and 
the  strong-minded  of  our  times.  They  have  been  let 
into  the  secrets  of  official  or  professional  intercourse, 
by  which  they  have  learned  that  orthodoxy  requires  of 
its  disciples  a  denial  of  the  rights  of  reason,  and  a  trib- 
ute of  implicit  faith  inconsistent  with  the  fundamental 


370   THE  FOEM  AND  THE  SUBSTANCE  OF  THE  CREED. 

principles  of  Protestantism.  They  will  not  condescend 
to  practise  the  hoodwinking  and  the  falsifying  essential 
to  the  maintenance  of  such  doctrinal  opinions  as  have 
been  discredited  by  more  just  views  of  Scripture,  of  the 
nature  of  man,  and  the  government  of  God.  Their 
hearts  are  in  open  rebellion  against  Calvinism,  while 
their  associations  through  tradition,  fellowship,  and  sen- 
timent are  with  orthodoxy.  They  dread  Unitarianism. 
The  bad  name  which  their  predecessors  gave  to  our  her- 
esy has  warned  them  effectually  from  much  sympathy 
with  us.  They  have  a  horror  of  the  calm,  cold,  languid 
spirit  of  Unitarianism,  of  its  bleak  and  houseless  expos- 
ure, and  of  the  precipices  of  infidelity  which  it  leaves 
unfenced.  Still  they  are  not  orthodox.  It  is  wrong  for 
them  to  retain  the  epithet.  The  severest  condemnation 
of  their  inconsistency  comes  in  part  from  their  own 
forced  silence,  and  in  part  from  the  positive  sentence 
passed  upon  them  whenever  they  dare  to  utter  them- 
selves by  those  who  are  really  orthodox.  They  wish  to 
make  religious  doctrines  more  intelligible,  more  reason- 
able, less  bewildering,  less  shocking,  as  the  announce- 
ment of  solemn  truths  embracing  things  human  and  di- 
vine. "  No  !  "  say  the  men  of  the  Old  School,  "  that  is 
the  very  thing  you  must  not  do,  for  it  is  the  very  thing 
that  spoils  religion.  The  bewildering,  the  mystifying, 
the  confounding  element  in  it  is  a  large  part  of  its  life. 
Let  it  alone.  The  more  it  baffles  your  reason,  and  pros- 
trates your  pride  of  mind,  the  more  devout  and  evan- 
gelical will  be  its  influence  over  you." 

Dr.  Hodge  fairly  states  the  issue  opened  by  the  New 
School  men  in  their  attempt  to  distinguish  between  the 
form  and  the  substance  of  the  truth  taught  in  the  creed. 
He  maintains,  consistently,  that  the  form  answers  to  the 
substance,  and  was  chosen  as  the  vehicle  to  convey  the 
substance  by  those  who  really  believed  the  substance. 
"  The  main  point,"  he   says,  "  is   nothing   more  or  less 


DR.  HODGE   ON  HERESIES.  371 

than  this  :  Is  that  system  of  doctrine  embodied  in  the 
creeds  of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  Churches,  in  its 
substantial  and  distinctive  features,  true  as  to  its  form 
as  well  as  to  its  substance  ?  Are  the  propositions  there- 
in contained  true  as  doctrines,  or  are  they  merely  intense 
expressions,  true  not  in  the  mode  in  which  they  are  there 
presented,  but  only  in  a  vague,  loose  sense,  which  the 
intellect  would  express  in  a  very  different  form  ?  Are 
these  creeds  to  be  understood  as  they  mean,  and  do  they 
mean  what  they  say,  or  is  allowance  to  be  made  for 
their  freedom,  abatement  of  their  force,  and  their  terms 
to  be  considered  antiquated  and  their  spirit  only  as  still 
in  force  ?  For  example,  when  these  creeds  speak  of  the 
imputation  of  Adam's  sin,  is  that  to  be  considered  as 
only  an  intense  form  of  expressing  the  '  definite  idea, 
that  we  are  exposed  to  evil  in  consequence  of  his  sin '  ? 
This  is  surely  a  question  of  great  importance."  *  "  The 
definite  idea"  which  Dr.  Hodge  puts  in  contrast  with 
the  creed,  is  that  which  he  ascribes  to  the  teaching  of 
Professor  Park. 

Again,  Dr.  Hodge  boldly  faces  his  own  orthodoxy  in 
the  following  sentences.  "  The  origin  of  sin,  the  fall  of 
man,  the  relation  of  Adam  to  his  posterity,  the  transmis- 
sion of  his  corrupt  nature  to  all  descended  from  him  by  or- 
dinary generation,  the  consistency  of  man's  freedom  with  ■ 
God's  sovereignty,  the  process  of  regeneration,  the  re- 
lation of  the  believer  to  Christ,  and  other  doctrines  of  the 
like  kind,  do  not  admit  of  <  philosophical  explanation.' 
They  cannot  be  dissected  and  mapped  off*  so  as  that  the 
points  of  contact  and  mode  of  union  with  all  other 
known  truths  can  be  clearly  understood ;  nor  can  God's 
dealings  with  our  race  be  all  explained  on  the  common- 
sense  principles  of  moral  government.  The  system 
which  Paul  taught  was  not  a  system  of  common  sense, 
but  of  profound  and  awful  mystery."  f    There  is  a  plau- 

*  Essays  and  Reviews,  pp.  572,  573.  t  Ibid.,  p.  583. 


372         COMMON  SENSE  AND  THE  CREED. 

sibleness  in  the  ingenious  shaping  of  the  assertions  in 
these  sentences.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  aim  of  the 
new  school  men  is  misstated  by  being  exaggerated,  if  not 
caricatured,  and  that  the  plea  of  censure  against  them 
seeks  to  strengthen  itself  by  an  unfair  construction  of 
St.  Paul.  We  do  not  understand  any  of  those  who  are 
interested  in  the  New  Theology  as  asking  that  the  doc- 
trines of  revelation  shall  be  so  divested  of  their  peculiar 
characteristics,  "  dissected,"  "  mapped  off,"  and  reduced 
to  the  same  category  as  other  known  truths.  Nor  do  we 
understand  St.  Paul  as  setting  "  the  mystery "  of  the 
Gospel  in  antagonism  with  common  sense.  We  should 
hardly  have  expected  of  a  Christian  scholar,  holding  the 
position  of  Dr.  Hodge,  that  he  would  indorse  the  popu- 
lar error  in  the  interpretation  of  that  word  mystery  as  ap- 
plied to  the  Gospel  scheme.  He  uses  it  as  synonymous 
with  something  that  baffles  reason  and  confounds  com- 
mon sense,  whereas  his  Master  repeatedly  asserted  that 
it  had  been  given  to  those  to  whom  he  spoke  to  know 
and  understand  it.  The  mystery,  or  rather  the  secret, 
was  disclosed,  and  the  commonest  sense  was  invited  to 
see  the  simple  wisdom,  the  divine  love  and  mercy,  dis- 
played in  it.  The  admission  made  by  Dr.  Hodge  in  the 
above-quoted  sentences  will  not  hinder  any  one  from 
.questioning  the  metaphysics  of  orthodoxy  in  the  hope  of 
reconciling  common  sense  and  the  creed.  To  proclaim 
an  antagonism  between  them  would  be  fatal  to  the 
world's  confidence  in  the  one  or  the  other  of  them.  As 
it  could  hardly  be  expected  that  the  mass  of  men  would 
give  over  their  reliance  upon  common  sense,  they  would 
find  a  warrant  in  the  assertion  of  the  theologian  for  dis- 
trusting such  a  "  mystery "  as  was  irreconcilable  with 
it.  This,  however,  is  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  results 
already  brought  about  by  the  disciples  of  the  New  The- 
ology, namely,  the  drawing  forth  a  confession  that  the  Old 
Theology  and  good  metaphysics  cannot   be  reconciled. 


RELIEF  SOUGHT  FROM  NEW  THEOLOGY.       373 

A  most  striking  and  startling  illustration  of  the  same  fact 
transpired  in  London  some  four  years  ago.  Mr.  Holy- 
oake,  the  unwearied  and  by  no  means  despicable  cham- 
pion of  that  theoretical  and  practical  atheism  called 
"  Secularism,"  which  is  thought  to  be  alarmingly  rife  in 
England,  challenged  a  defender  of  revelation  to  a  series 
of  formal  discussions.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Grant  accepted 
the  challenge,  and  a  course  of  public  disputations  fol- 
lowed. But  the  Christian  advocate,  though  an  ortho- 
dox man,  expressly  demanded  that  the  subjects  in  debate 
should  not  include  the  peculiar  tenets  of  orthodoxy. 
The  discussions  concerned  those  points  of  the  Christian 
belief  common  to  us  and  the  orthodox.  These  were  ar- 
gued precisely  as  a  Unitarian  would  argue  with  an  un- 
believer, and  every  tenet  peculiar  to  Trinitarianism  and 
Calvinism  was  kept  out  of  sight  and  notice.  Mr.  Grant 
did  not  fear  to  apply  the  tests  of  common  sense,  sound 
philosophy,  and  good  metaphysics  to  the  great,  funda- 
mental truths  and  doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion,  as 
we  regard  them.  Why,  then,  should  he  shrink  from  their 
application  to  what  Orthodoxy  regards  as  the  life  and 
substance  of  the  Christian  system  ?  Again,  Mr.  Rogers, 
also  in  profession  an  orthodox  believer,  in  his  Eclipse  of 
Faith,  designed  to  answer  the  sceptical  and  rationalistic 
views  of  Mr.  Newman  and  others,  has  not  one  single 
word  of  pleading  to  offer  in  the  name  of  reason  and  phi- 
losophy for  any  of  the  special  tenets  of  Orthodoxy.  He 
does  use  those  noble  weapons,  but  only  as  we  would  use 
them,  and  only  in  behalf  of  simple  Christian  verities.  Are 
we  mistaken  in  our  inferences  from  these  striking  facts  ? 
It  would  be  but  an  easy  task  for  us  to  offer  in  detail  a 
long  specification  of  the  doctrinal  difficulties  in  the  or- 
thodox formulas,  from  which  relief  is  sought  in  the  New 
Theology.  We  must  confine  ourselves  to  a  selection, 
with  but  few  words  of  comment.  First  of  all  comes  up 
the  orthodox  doctrine  of   the  Inspiration  of  the   Scrip- 


374  INSPIRATION    OF   THE    SCRIPTURES. 

tures.  Dr.  Hodge  says,  "  The  old  doctrine  of  the  plenary 
inspiration,  and  consequent  infallibility,  of  the  written 
word,  is  still  held  by  the  great  body  of  believers."  *  Now 
we  will  not  answer  for  the  great  body  of  believers,  but 
we  will  affirm  that  the  old  doctrine,  —  the  doctrine  of  the 
creed,  —  the  doctrine  proposed,  argued  for,  and  accepted 
even  a  hundred  years  ago  on  that  subject,  —  is  not  the 
doctrine  of  leading  orthodox  divines  at  the  present  day. 
Nothing  but  subtle  tricks  of  language  as  to  the  meaning 
of  words,  nothing  but  evasions  and  special  pleadings 
when  insurmountable  difficulties  are  encountered,  will 
serve  to  vindicate  an  antiquated  and  exploded  supersti- 
tion on  this  subject.  A  Christian  scholar  knows  very  well 
what  was  understood  when  the  creed  denned  the  doc- 
trine of  inspiration  by  the  words  plenary  and  infallibility. 
Any  competent  theologian  who  tries  now  to  assert  the 
old,  stringent  claim  conveyed  by  those  words,  must  trifle 
with  truth.  The  issue  raised  on  this  subject  is  very 
plain,  even  to  the  unlearned ;  it  may  all  be  expressed  and 
set  forth  in  a  few  words.  Each  of  the  Evangelists  gives 
us  a  copy  of  the  inscription  over  the  cross  of  the  Saviour. 
Matthew  says  it  was  "  This  is  Jesus,  the  King  of  the 
Jews";  Mark,  that  it  was  "The  King  of  the  Jews"; 
Luke,  that  it  was  u  This  is  the  King  of  the  Jews  " ;  and 
John,  that  it  was  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  King  of  the 
Jews."  Now,  what  was  the  inscription  ?  Suppose  the 
design  were  to  erect  in  the  most  splendid  Christian  tem- 
ple a  more  imposing  artistic  representation  of  the  cru- 
cifixion than  was  ever  yet  wrought,  and  that  it  was 
proposed  to  set  the  inscription  on  the  cross  in  blazing 
diamonds.  Which  of  these  four  versions  —  given  in  a 
plenarily  inspired  and  infallible  record — shall  the  artist 
follow?  The  very  claim  set  up  for  the  record  sug- 
gests the  perplexity.     No  one  would  be  embarrassed  by 

*  Essays  and  Eeviews,  p.  539. 


INSPIRATION   OF   THE    SCRIPTURES.  375 

it,  except  when  it  is  aggravated  by  an  assertion  which  is 
utterly  irreconcilable  with  it.  The  inscription  could 
not  have  been  written  in  all  the  four  ways  in  which  it 
stands  in  the  Four  Gospels.  Three  of  them  at  least, 
then,  are  not  infallible,  unless  a  trick  is  played  with  the 
meaning  of  that  word.  Nor  shall  we  find  help  in  the 
suggestion  that  the  variations  may  arise  from  different 
ways  of  putting  into  English  the  original  words  given 
by  the  Evangelists.  The  Greek  text  presents  these  vari- 
ations. Let  the  same  process  be  tried  with  the  four  nar- 
ratives of  the  Saviour's  resurrection,  or  with  the  three  ac- 
counts given  in  the  Book  of  Acts  of  the  conversion  of 
St.  Paul.  Let  the  structure  and  contents  of  the  whole 
Bible  be  studied  in  the  light  of  our  best  wisdom,  and  let 
the  phenomena  which  they  present  be  confronted  with 
the  fair  and  honest  signification  of  the  terms  infallibility 
and  plenary  inspiration.  The  result  must  be,  either  that 
the  meaning  of  those  words  must  be  tampered  with, 
or  that  they  must  no  longer  be  used  to  define  a  dogma 
about  the  Bible  as  a  whole.  Honest,  candid,  and  inquis- 
itive Christian  scholars  and  readers  of  all  denominations 
are  confronting  this  fact.  Dr.  Hodge  may  tell  us  that 
"  the  great  body  of  believers  "  still  hold  to  this  or  that. 
The  assertion  is  of  very  little  consequence,  whether  it  be 
admitted  or  denied.  We  have  serious  facts  to  deal  with. 
We  are  asking  what  the  great  body  of  believers  of  the 
next  generation  will  have  to  hold  by  in  this  matter.  We 
are  asking  how  those  who,  as  orthodox  men,  profess  to 
hold  the  old  doctrine  of  the  creed  on  this  point,  are  to  rec- 
oncile it,  not  merely  with  their  speculations,  but  with  the 
contents  of  the  Bible  ?  It  is  but  poor  and  miserable 
dogmatism,  heartless  and  cruel  contempt,  which  would 
invoke  the  odium  theolog-icum  to  the  aid  of  a  discomfited 
and  discredited  superstition  against  men  who  are  labor- 
ing in  the  utmost  sincerity  of  soul  to  find  a  more  truth- 
ful expression  for  their  faith.     The  strictures  to  which 


376  INSPIRATION   OF   THE    SCRIPTURES. 

we  have  referred  ill  that  remarkable  article  in  the  North 
British  Review  are  a  fair  exhibition  of  the  incompetency 
of  Dr.  Chalmers's  views  on  the  subject  to  meet  the  facts 
and  phenomena  that  are  to  be  taken  into  account.  The 
New  Theology  has  subverted  the  old  theory  of  the  in- 
spired iyifallibility  of  all  the  contents  of  Scripture.  We 
do  not  believe  that  it  will  rest  content  with  quibbling 
with  the  two  words,  but  will  labor  to  define  and  vindi- 
cate a  new  and  defensible  statement  of  such  a  truth  as 
to  the  authority  and  value  of  the  Bible  as  will  make  it 
not  one  whit  less  precious  to  us  all.  For  the  simple  fact 
is,  that  the  doctrinal  formula  and  the  popular  belief  on 
this  point  are  cast  in  a  form  which  does  not  fit  the  man- 
ifest evidence  of  the  very  contents  of  the  Bible.  The 
abatement  already  allowed  in  the  old  doctrine,  and  hard- 
ly contested  by  any  one  whose  arguments  have  weight, 
amounts  to  this :  it  distinguishes  between  the  inspiration 
of  the  sentiments  contained  in  the  Bible,  and  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  writers  who  were  prompted  by  God  to  put 
those  sentiments  on  record.  Thus  our  New  Theology 
men  affirm  that  there  are  objectionable  and  positively 
false  sentiments  and  statements  advanced  in  the  Bible ; 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  Books  of  Job  and  Ecclesiastes ; 
and  these  cannot  in  any  sense  be  said  to  be  inspired  of 
God.  But  still  they  were  none  the  less  written  by  inspi- 
ration of  God,  as  God  induced  and  qualified  the  scribes 
to  put  them  down  as  entering  into  the  method  of  a  di- 
vine oversight  over  human  errors  and  follies.  There 
have  been  some  very  able  statements  of  this  distinction 
by  orthodox  men.  It  is  easy  to  apply  it  in  some  cases, 
but  when  Ave  come  to  test  it  in  reference  to  alleged  errors 
and  discrepancies  in  the  writings  of  inspired  men  about 
things  within  their  own  knowledge,  the  distinction  is 
found  to  labor. 

We  see  that  high  praise  is  lavished  in  some  quarters 
upon   the    new   work  on   this  profoundly   serious   sub- 


LEE    ON   INSPIRATION.  377 

ject  by  Mr.  Lee.*  We  think  the  book  will  most  griev- 
ously disappoint  those  who  turn  to  it  for  wise  instruc- 
tion and  efficient  relief.  The  author  seems  to  under- 
stand and  appreciate  the  difficulty  and  the  urgency  of 
his  work,  for  he  says :  "  With  reference  to  the  nature  of 
inspiration  itself,  and  to  the  possibility  of  reconciling 
the  unquestionable  stamp  of  humanity  impressed  upon 
every  page  of  the  Bible  with  that  undoubting  belief  in 
its  perfection  and  infallibility  which  is  the  Christian's 
most  precious  inheritance,  it  may  safely  be  maintained 
that  in  English  theology  almost  nothing  has  been  done ; 
and  that  no  effort  has  hitherto  been  made  to  grapple  di- 
rectly with  the  difficulties  of  the  subject."  f  He  intimates 
his  own  especial  method  of  argument  in  the  following 
sentence  :  "  There  is  one  principle  which  forms  a  chief 
element  of  the  theory  proposed  in  the  following  Dis- 
courses, —  I  mean  the  distinction  between  Revelation 
and  Inspiration,  —  that  has  never,  to  my  knowledge,  been 
consistently  applied  to  the  contents  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, even  by  those  writers  who  insist  upon  its  impor- 
tance." J  When  approaching  the  close  of  his  work, 
the  author  says :  "  Thus  far  I  have  endeavored  to  lay 
down  principles  from  which  the  divine  authority,  the 
infallible  certainty,  and  the  entire  truthfulness,  of  every 
part  of  the  Scriptures  must  necessarily  result.  To  this 
conclusion  many  exceptions  have  been  taken  ;  and  with 
some  general  observations  on  the  nature  and  foundation 
of  such  exceptions,  these  Discourses  shall  fitly  termi- 
nate." §  Our  readers  would  care  but  little  to  know 
how  an  author  who  could  affirm  the  above  inferences 
from  his  principles,  would  meet  the  facts  and  explain 
the  phenomena  that  are  utterly  inconsistent  with  them. 

*  The  Inspiration  of  Holy  Scripture,  its  Nature  and  Proof.    By  William 

Lee,  M.  A.,  Fellow  and  Tutor  of  Trinity  College.  New  York  :  Carter 
and  Brothers.    1857. 

t  Preface.  \  Ibid.  $  Page  342. 

32* 


378  COMPOSITION    OF   THEOLOGY. 

His  work  is  weakest  where  it  ought  to  be  strongest. 
He  evades  what  he  leads  us  to  suppose  he  is  about 
to  reconcile  and  explain.  He  tries  to  withstand  the 
allowance  indorsed  by  Mr.  Alford,  another  University 
man,  that  the  Apostles,  in  quoting  the  Greek  version  of 
the  Old  Testament  from  memory,  have  fallen  into  mis- 
takes, and  affirms  that,  if  this  were  capable  of  proof,  it 
would  be  "  obviously  fatal  to  that  view  of  the  inspira- 
tion of  Scripture  which  I  have  endeavored  to  maintain, 
according  to  which  each  and  every  portion  of  the  Bible 
is  perfect  and  divine."  *  He  seems  to  censure  Professor 
Stuart  for  "  having  enumerated,  without  annexing'  any  ref- 
utation, most  of  the  strong  points  which  De  Wette  and 
others  conceive  that  they  have  established  against  the 
Books  of  Chronicles."  f  We  have  no  doubt  it  would 
have  greatly  rejoiced  the  excellent  Professor  to  have  an- 
nexed such  refutations,  if  he  had  only  known  where  to 
find  them.  So  much  for  the  matter  of  Inspiration.  The 
issue  raised  there  is  no  longer  one  between  the  Unitarians 
and  the  Orthodox.  The  New  Theology  is  at  work  upon  it. 
The  aim  of  the  New  Theology  in  its  dealings  with  the 
organic  doctrines  of  Orthodoxy  is  one  which  we  are  to  in- 
fer from  a  great  many  intimations  of  it  from  a  great  many 
different  sources.  Religion,  as  it  is  presented  to  our 
minds  through  the  education  by  which  we  have  received 
our  knowledge  of  it,  comes  to  us  as  a  homogeneous  whole, 
combining  divine  and  human  elements.  Our  first  efforts 
in  theology  suggest  to  us  the  necessity  of  distinguishing 
between  these  human  and  divine  elements  as  regards  the 
sources  of  our  knowledge  and  the  substance  and  authority 
of  the  truths  supposed  to  be  received  through  each  of  them. 
And  then  comes  up  the  question,  How  far  off,  how  deep 
down,  must  we  begin  in  attempting  to  draw  this  distinc- 
tion ?     How  radical   must   the   process   be  ?     The  old 


*  Page  304.  t  Page  393,  note. 


REFORMS   IN  THEOLOGY.  379 

school  men  are  right  in  affirming  that  theological  soil 
does  not  admit  of  mere  top-dressing  to  any  good  pur- 
pose, and  that  its  crops  cannot  be  changed  by  sprinkling 
seed  on  the  surface.  The  wisest  and  most  candid 
inquirer,  the  least  prejudiced  and  most  unbiased  student 
in  theology,  can  never  succeed  in  relieving  himself  wholly 
of  the  constraining  influence  on  his  own  mind  of  the 
system  under  which  he  has  been  trained,  and  from 
which  he  starts  when  he  begins  his  investigations.  He 
has  fixed  for  himself  the  meanings  of  important  words. 
He  has  formed  his  associations  of  sympathy,  his  preju- 
dices of  sentiment,  and  in  large  measure  his  standard  of 
judgment.  His  present  views  or  prepossessions,  his  in- 
clinations, and  his  range  of  speculation,  have  been  deter- 
mined by  circumstances.  He  naturally  takes  his  tradi- 
tional or  habitual  method  for  deciding  between  truth 
and  error  as  the  standard  by  which  his  further  inquiries 
are  to  be  regulated.  He  asks  himself  whether  he  is  to 
believe  more  or  less  than  what  he  now  believes.  The 
mould  already  formed  in  his  own  mind  gives  shape  to 
the  new  materials  which  he  receives  into  it.  Every 
workman  must  find  some  of  the  conditions  of  his  work 
in  his  materials,  and  whatever  novelties  of  pattern  he 
may  propose  will  be  judged  to  be  improvements  or 
defects  according  as  they  are  compared  with  some  pres- 
ent pattern.  Every  theological  inquirer  starts  with  a 
creed,  which,  up  to  the  date  of  his  first  attempt  to  sub- 
ject it  to  a  thorough  inquisition,  has  passed  with  him 
for  a  standard  and  symbol  of  truth.  He  soon  finds  a 
fruitful,  almost  an  exhaustless  and  endless  task,  in  set- 
tling the  meaning  of  theological  terms,  in  coming  to  an 
understanding  with  others  about  their  use  of  those 
terms,  in  asking  whether  all  who  employ  them  connect 
the  same  sense  with  them.  The  range  within  which  we. 
may  accord  in  our  opinions  with  others,  and  yet  contend 
and  quarrel   hopelessly  in  our  attempts  to  express  our 


380  THEOLOGICAL   TERMS. 

views  in  common  formulas,  is  a  problem  which  requires 
vast  wisdom  and  unbounded  charity  for  its  solution. 
Nor  are  the  perplexities  which  arise  from  this  source 
relieved  by  our  agreeing  to  use  Scripture  terms  in  our 
theological  discussions.  All  the  terms  used  in  these  dis- 
cussions become  technical.  They  are  generally  chosen 
from  other  languages  than  our  own,  and  are  perplexed 
with  etymological  niceties  of  definition,  or  they  are  used 
in  a  sense  different  from  that  which  associates  them 
with  common,  earthly  things.  These  technical  theologi- 
cal terms  are  adopted  as  if  more  expressive  or  compre- 
hensive in  their  signification  than  any  which  our  house- 
hold speech  affords  ;  but  certainly  one  prevailing  reason 
with  theologians  for  keeping  them  in  use  is,  that  they 
are  often  so  vague  and  indefinite,  and  so  burdened  with 
double  meanings,  like  old  oracles,  as  to  allow  those  who 
employ  them  a  considerable  range  of  liberty,  and  to  ex- 
cuse them  from  being  too  explicit.  If  we  take  any  one 
of  the  contested  problems  in  doctrinal  or  speculative 
theology,  we  find  it  to  be  involved  with  terms  each  of 
which  asks  for  a  re-definition,  or  a  rectification  of  its 
popular  or  scholarly  interpretation,  before  any  new  writer 
can  profitably  use  it  in  discussion.  He  must  at  any  rate 
tell  us  in  what  sense,  and  with  what  limitations,  he  in- 
tends to  use  each  of  these  test  words.  Thus,  in  dis- 
cussing the  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  the 
venturesome  speculator  must  define  anew,  or  choose  out 
of  many  accepted  definitions  that  in  which  he  intends 
to  use,  such  words  as  these,  Ability,  Motive,  Freedom, 
Necessity,  Contingency,  Will,  &c.  He  can  make  no  pro- 
gress till  he  has  done  this,  and  in  doing  it  he  has  un- 
bounded opportunities  for  bewitching  the  simple  truth, 
for  confusing  himself  and  mystifying  his  readers.  He 
may  find,  after  all,  that  he  has  but  been  traversing  the 
same  old  weary  cycle  of  human  thought  symbolized  to 
us  in  the  motion  of  the  serpent  as  it  curls  on  till  its  two 


CHANGED   MEANINGS   AND   TERMS.  381 

extremities,  its  beginning  and  its  end,  meet  together  and 
complete  the  circle.  Our  dictionaries  grow  larger  with 
every  revision  of  them,  and  while  our  language  is  adopt- 
ing new  words,  it  is  also  doubling  the  significations  of 
some  of  its  very  oldest  words.  Professor  Whewell 
opens  this  whole  issue,  when  he  distinguishes  between 
the  language  of  science  and  the  language  of  Scripture 
in  reference  to  the  needful  changes  to  be  recognized  by 
the  progress  of  thought.  He  says :  u  Science  is  con- 
stantly teaching  us  to  describe  known  facts  in  new 
language ;  but  the  language  of  Scripture  is  always  the 
same."  *  But  we  have  to  change  our  scientific  language 
because  we  get  a  better  knowledge  of  scientific  facts. 
As  we  cannot  change  the  language  of  Scripture,  we 
have  to  allow  for  changes  that  creep  into  the  meaning 
of  words,  and  for  the  associations  that  may  erroneously 
attach  to  them  ;  and  so,  while  studying  the  truths  of 
Scripture,  we  have  to  show  the  variance  of  our  philoso- 
phy of  them  by  casting  them  into  new  formulas.  Then, 
too,  our  theology,  or  our  philosophy  of  religion,  must 
respect  the  facts  and  the  form  of  revelation  in  spite  of 
its  perplexities. and  its  seeming  anomalies;  precisely  as 
our  natural  philosophy  has  to  respect  the  mysterious  and 
inexplicable  phenomena  of  nature.  Taking  all  these 
things  into  view,  we  may  well  understand  how  compli- 
cated is  the  task  of  the  theologian  in  attempting  to 
fathom  and  systematize  the  profound  themes  of  his 
study.  His  attempt  resembles,  in  one  respect  at  least, 
that  of  the  experimenter  who  is  seeking  to  sound  the 
ocean  depths,  and  finds  that  the  necessary  weight  of  the 
plummet  and  the  length  of  his  line  become  embarrass- 
ing to  him,  and  may  leave  him  in  doubt  whether  he  has 
reached  bottom. 

We  find,  then,  that  the  aim  of  the   New  Theology 

*  History  of  Inductive  Sciences,  Vol.  I.  p.  686. 


382  form  and  substance  of  orthodoxy. 

admits  to  itself  an  earnest  and  determined  spirit  in  the 
pursuit  of  such  speculative  ends  as  the  following,  —  even 
at  the  risk  of  doing  something  more  than  speculate,  if  it 
be  found  necessary  to  do  more.  It  seeks  to  reconstruct 
the  formulas  for  the  statement  of  fundamental  doctrines, 
and  to  rectify  their  phraseology.  It  seeks  to  secure  a 
more  philosophical  expression  of  the  truths  which  these 
formulas  are  intended  to  convey,  without  any  essential 
variation  from  the  accepted  doctrines  which  are  admitted 
to  be  announced  by  them.  Again,  the  New  Theology 
wishes  to  modify  in  some  cases  the  philosophy  of  doc- 
trine, by  softening  some  aspects  of  some  of  its  dogmas 
which  have  been  exaggerated  in  their  exhibition,  and  by 
reconciling  some  of  its  inconsistencies,  with  a  view  to  a 
more  harmonious  system.  If  all  this  can  be  done  and 
leave  the  solemn  old  sanctities  of  the  creed  to  an  unim- 
paired reverence  and  an  undiminished  faith,  the  new 
form  shall  be  offered  as  but  a  better  way  for  setting  forth 
the  old  substance.  But  if  these  speculative  processes 
are  found  to  involve  substantial  changes  of  doctrine, 
what  then  ?  Dr.  Hodge  says,  and  he  writes  like  a  most 
earnest  and  perfectly  competent  witness,  that  the  New 
Theology  cannot  even  argue  for,  much  less  reach,  its  in- 
tended alterations  in  the  philosophy  of  doctrine,  without 
trifling  with  and  perilling  its  substance.  The  doctrines 
of  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  and  the  Atonement  ask 
of  the  New  Theology  at  least  a  reconstruction  of  the 
formulas  for  expressing  their  orthodox  teaching.  The 
objection  to  the  use  of  the  word  Persons  in  stating  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  been  well-nigh  universally 
admitted  by  our  best  theologians,  for  the  double  reason 
that  the  formula  does  not  convey  the  real  idea  which 
they  wish  to  express,  and  that  it  does  assert  something 
which  they  do  not  wish  to  affirm.  Dr.  Bushnell  has 
gone  beyond  any  writer,  still  holding  to  the  repute  of 
Orthodoxy,  in  challenging  not  only  the  language  of  the 


ASSAULTS    ON   THE   OLD   DIVINITY.  383 

formulas,  but  the  contents  of  them,  in  reference  to  the 
three  doctrines  just  specified.  Dr.  Hodge  says  :  "  He 
rejects  the  old  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  Incarnation  ; 
but  he  has  produced  no  other  intelligible  doctrine.  He 
has  not  thought  himself  through.  He  is  only  half  out 
of  the  shell.  And  therefore  his  attempt  to  soar  is  pre- 
mature." *  The  difficulty  which  most  Unitarians  have 
found  with  Dr.  Bushnell  is,  —  if  we  may  use  the  not 
very  elegant  similes  of  the  Princeton  Professor,  —  that 
he  is  carrying  about  with  him  some  fragments  of  his 
broken  shell,  and  even  with  that  encumbrance  soars  too 
high  for  them.  "  He  rejects  the  doctrine  of  three  per- 
sons in  one  God,"  says  Dr.  Hodge,  and  "in  opposition 
to  such  a  Trinity  he  presents  and  urges  the  doctrine  of 
an  historical  Trinity,  a  threefold  revelation  of  God,  —  a 
trinity  of  revelations."  Still,  Dr.  Bushnell  is  evidently 
striving  after  and  intending  to  hold  the  truth,  the  Scrip- 
ture truth,  which  the  makers  of  the  creed  endeavored  to 
convey  in  the  formula.  We  may  put  in  the  same  claim. 
Let  us  understand  what  Scripture  truth  is  conveyed  in 
it,  and  we  too  will  accept  it. 

Dr.  Hodge  says  much  the  same  of  the  "  half-ism  "  of 
Orthodoxy  to  which  Dr.  Bushnell  clings  in  his  view  of 
the  Incarnation,  —  as  God  appearing  under  the  limita- 
tions of  humanity,  without  admitting  a  distinct  human 
soul  in  Christ,  or  assigning  to  him  a  twofold  nature. 
More  positive  still  is  the  Princeton  Professor  in  con- 
demning Dr.  Bushnell's  "Altar  view"  of  the  Atonement, 
"  which  regards  it  as  designed  to  produce  a  subjective 
effect,  to  impress  men  with  a  sense  of  God's  love,"  f  &c. 
But  the  New  Theology  does  not  confine  its  venture- 
some speculations  to  these  three  doctrines.  It  grapples 
not  only  with  the  orthodox  formulas  of  the  nature,  cor- 
ruption, and  destiny  of  man,  but  it  assails  with  something 

*  Essays  and  Reviews,  p.  434.  t  Ibid.,  p.  436. 


384  PROFESSOR   STUART  AMONG  HERETICS. 

more  than  metaphysical  strength,  —  yes,  even  with  the 
logic  of  common  sense,  —  the  doctrines  which  are  ad- 
equately expressed  in  those  formulas.  Here  the  aim  is 
to  find,  if  possible,  a  theory  of  Free  Agency  which  can 
be  reconciled  with  the  doctrines  of  original  sin  and 
efficacious  grace.  Edwards's  work  is  built  upon  a  union 
of  the  philosophical  theory  of  necessity  with  the  theo- 
logical doctrine  of  predestination.  The  new  school  of  our 
times,  the  novissima,  insists  upon  regarding  the  freedom 
of  the  will  as  an  axiom,  a  first  truth,  whose  evidence 
goes  with  the  statement  of  it.  Is  man  an  agent,  or  an 
instrument,  is  the  question  ?  The  new  school  will  have 
it,  that  the  old  school  believes  in  physical  depravity  and 
physical  regeneration,  and  that  it  antedates  conscious- 
ness by  responsibility,  and  makes  us  accountable  before 
we  are  intelligent.  The  issue  is  not,  as  Dr.  Hodge 
insists,  with  reiteration  of  phrase,  that  the  new  theology 
denies  God's  sovereignty  in  every  gracious  work  ;  the 
attempt  is  made  to  lift  that  sovereignty,  and  to  extend 
its  range  and  workings,  beyond  the  compression  of  meta- 
physical definitions.  Professor  Hodge  reflects  on  the 
late  Professor  Stuart  for  having  expressed  himself  as 
being  shocked  by  the  old  school  doctrine,  "  that  all  men 
are  subject  to  death,  i.  e.  penal  evil,  on  account  of  the 
sin  of  Adam."  The  Princeton  Professor  adds,  that  he 
and  his  brethren  believe,  "  that  the  grace  which  is  in 
Christ  Jesus  secures  the  salvation  of  all  who  have  no 
personal  sins  to  answer  for."  *  But  how  will  this  accord 
with  the  three  following  assertions  from  the  same  pen,  — 
that  "  the  mere  absence  of  a  native  tendency  to  God 
leaves  the  soul  in  moral  confusion  and  ruin"  ;  f  and  that 
the  withholding  by  God  of  those  divine  communications 
which  Adam  enjoyed,  but  of  which  God  deprives  us 
because  of  his  sin,  "  is  a  penal  evil,  from  which,  it  is  true, 

*  Essays,  &c.,  p.  71.  t  Ibid.,  p.  43. 


THE  NEWEST  THEOLOGY.  385 

utter  ruin  results,  but  it  is  the  ruin,  not  of  innocent,  but 
of  fallen  human  beings  "  ;  *  and  with  another  statement 
which  Dr.  Hodge  advances  as  his  doctrine,  —  that  "  the 
sin  of  Adam  is  so  put  to  the  account  of  his  posterity 
that  they  are  condemned  on  account  of  it,  antecedent 
to  any  action  of  their  own  "  ?  f  Here  is  metaphysical 
theology  with  a  vengeance,  and  we  repeat  our  former 
remark,  that  no  man  would  venture  to  offer  to  us  such 
theology,  if  he  did  not  rely  on  the  unbounded  capacities 
of  metaphysics  for  mystifying  simple  truth.  Professor 
Park  says,  that  "  it  is  more  difficult  to  reconcile  the  New 
England  divinity  and  the  old  Calvinism  on  these  sub- 
jects than  on  any  other."  J  Professor  Stuart,  as  Dr. 
Hodge  asserts,  tried  hard  to  evade  the  plain  meaning  of 
his  own  formulas  on  these  points.  If  we  pronounced'  a 
judgment  in  the  case,  we  should  assume  the  office  of 
umpire  between  two  professed  advocates  of  Orthodoxy, 
an  office  not  excluded  from  the  scope  of  our  charity,  but 
not  inviting  to  our  logical  skill. 

The  actual  loss  incurred  by  all  the  millions  of  the  hu- 
man family  through  the  sin  of  their  progenitor,  the  ac- 
tual resources  still  left  in  human  nature  for  meeting  the 
demands  of  God's  law,  and  the  mode  of  adjusting  the 
obligation  under  which  we  lie  to  the  impaired  ability 
with  which  we  are  born,  —  these  are  problems  on  which, 
with  the  help  of  metaphysics,  endless  discussions  may 
be  kept  up  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Schools. 
Professor  Park  tried  the  whole  resources  of  his  amaz- 
ingly acute  and  skilful  mind  upon  these  and  other 
problems.  He  tells  us  that  we  may  use,  in  addressing 
the  heart,  language  and  modes  of  expression  which  may 
be  true  to  the  heart  though  false  to  the  mind.  We 
may  excite  emotions  by  appeals  and  statements  which 
the  intellect  will  afterwards  dispute  and  qualify.     In  a 

*  Essays,  &c.,  p.  44.  J  Ibid.,  p.  630. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  83. 

33 


386  PROGRESSIVE  THEOLOGY. 

word,  we  may  have  one  theology  for  the  feelings,  in 
their  ardent,  illogical,  earnest  workings,  and  another  for 
the  intellect,  in  its  cool,  deliberate  processes  of  thought 
and  reasoning.  We  trust  all  our  readers  have  perused 
that  Convention  Discourse  of  the  Andover  Professor  to 
which  we  have  more  than  once  referred.  We  regard 
it  on  the  score  of  what  it  boldly  affirms,  and  of  what  it 
so  significantly  implies,  when  taken  in  connection  with 
its  wonderful  beauty  of  style  and  its  marvellous  sub- 
tilty  of  analysis,  as.  the  most  noteworthy  contribution 
which  Orthodoxy  has  made  to  the  literature  of  New 
England  for  the  last  half-century.  That  single  dis- 
course would  win  fame  for  any  preacher.  It  has  evi- 
dently exercised  Dr.  Hodge  beyond  any  heretical  dose 
which  the  new-fangled  system  has  ever  administered  to 
him.  And  the  Princeton  divine  has  shown  almost  equal 
acuteness  in  meeting  the  propositions  of  the  Discourse. 
He  tells  us,  without  any  anxiety  for  seeking  soft  words, 
that  Professor  Park  has  published  "  an  attack  on  doc- 
trines long  held  sacred  "  ;  that  "  he  has  obviously  adopted 
his  theory  as  a  convenient  way  of  getting  rid  of  certain 
doctrines  which  stand  out  far  too  prominently  in  Scrip- 
ture, and  are  too  deeply  impressed  on  the  hearts  of 
God's  people  to  allow  of  their  being  denied  "  ;  and  that 
the  aim  of  the  Discourse  is  "  to  show  how  the  same 
proposition  may  be  both  affirmed  and  denied."  *  It  so 
happens,  too,  that  the  doctrines  to  which  Professor  Park 
applies  his  ingenious  method  of  reasoning  are  the  very 
doctrines  which  constitute  the  life  of  Orthodoxy.  The 
creed,  he  says,  states  these  doctrines  in  a  way  suited  to 
make  them  effective  in  addressing  the  heart,  but  the 
mind  can  by  no  means  receive  them  when  it  analyzes 
them  logically.  The  old  doctrine  of  our  utter  ruin,  in- 
ability, and  state  of   doom  is  reduced   by  Dr.   Park's 

*  Essays,  &c,  pp.  542-544. 


PROFESSORS  HODGE  AND  PARK.  387 

intellect  to  the  following  logical  statement,  —  "  that  the 
character  of  our  race  needs  an  essential  transformation 
by  an  interposed  influence  of  God."  On  this  nice  piece 
of  tamed  Calvinism,  "cold  and  deadening"  enough  to 
have  come  from  "the  most  chilling  of  Unitarian  pul- 
pits," Dr.  Hodge  remarks:  "Certainly  a  very  genteel 
way  of  expressing  the  matter,  which  need  offend  no  one, 
Jew  or  Gentile,  Augustin  or  Pelagius.  All  may  say 
that  much,  and  make  it  mean  more  or  less  at  pleasure. 
If  such  is  the  sublimation  to  which  the  theology  of  the 
intellect  is  to  subject  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  they 
will  soon  be  dissipated  into  thin  air."  *  The  difficulty 
is,  as  Dr.  Hodge  shows,  that  Professor  Park  commits 
to  the  theology  of  the  feelings,  as  rhetorical  or  impas- 
sioned statements  uttered  for  effect,  the  carefully  worded 
intellectual  propositions  which  have  been  selected  for 
catechisms  and  creeds  as  gathering  up  the  substance 
of  the  manifold  and  diversified  representations  of  Scrip- 
ture. The  theory,  though  seemingly  so  specious  and 
fair,  is  pronounced  to  be  radically  false,  vitiated  by  a 
flaw  in  its  premises.  It  starts  from  the  assumption, 
than  which  no  assertion  can  be  more  diametrically  op- 
posed to  the  truth,  that  strong  feeling  is  engaged  by 
and  expresses  itself  in  metaphorical  language ;  whereas 
strong  feeling  uses  and  demands  simple,  direct,  naked, 
literal  utterance.  Thus,  says  Dr.  Hodge,  Professor  Park 
adduces  the  sentence,  "  God,  the  Mighty  Maker,  died !  " 
as  one  which  excited  and  engaged  Christian  feeling 
may  utter,  but  against  which  the  intellect  protests ;  but 
the  truth  is  precisely  the  other  way.  Does  not  feeling 
recoil  shocked  on  hearing  the  sentence,  while  the  intel- 
lect by  the  forced  ingenuities  of  doctrinal  constructive- 
ness  tries  to  ratify  its  assertion  ?  So  the  Princeton  di- 
vine affirms  that  the  only  grain  of  truth  wrought  up  in 


*  Essays,  &c,  p.  551. 


388  FAITH  PROFESSED    WITHOUT   BELIEF. 

the  theory  of  his  brother  of  Andover  is,  that  the  Scrip- 
ture makes  use  of  metaphorical  language,  —  a  fact  that 
was  recognized  before  Dr.  Park  wrote.  The  latter  di- 
vine tells  us  that  "  the  theology  of  the  heart,  letting  the 
minor  accuracies  go  for  the  sake  of  holding  strongly 
upon  the  substance  of  doctrine,  need  not  always  accom- 
modate itself  to  scientific  changes,  but  may  often  use  its 
old  statements,  even  if,  when  literally  understood,  they  be 
incorrect,  and  it  thus  abides  permanent  as  are  the  main 
impressions  of  the  truth."  This,  Dr.  Hodge  says,  "  is  a 
rather  dangerous  principle."  * 

Nor  is  this  all.  Dr.  Hodge  will  not  allow  that  these 
tricks  with  language  are  consistent  with  a  real,  honest 
faith  in  the  doctrines  announced  in  the  old  formulas. 
And  here  we  come  to  the  only  point  which  has  much 
interest  for  us  in  this  discussion.  Can  these  earnest  and 
able  divines,  who  stand  with  us  as  the  prime  movers 
in  the  yet  undeveloped  scheme  of  the  New  Theology, 
be  regarded  as  actually  holding  the  substance  of  the 
old  doctrines  ?  Certainly  not,  we  answer,  as  we  should 
feel  bound  to  hold  them  if  we  professed  to  receive 
the  formulas  under  any  sense  which  the  fair  construc- 
tion of  language  will  admit.  So,  too,  answers  Dr. 
Hodge.  In  criticising  Dr.  Bushnell,  he  says,  "  It  is  very 
difficult  to  understand  what  a  writer  means  who  em- 
ploys a  new  terminology."  f  It  is  difficult.  But  we 
are  apt  to  understand  or  infer  one  thing,  and  that  is, 
that  such  a  writer  does  not  believe  what  is  expressed  in 
the  old  terminology.  Dr.  Hodge  very  bluntly  affirms 
that  Professor  Park's  theory  "  enables  a  man  to  profess 
his  faith  in  doctrines  which  he  does  not  believe."  \ 
Equally  grave  is  the  following  judgment :  "  There  is  a 
large  class  of  words  to  which  Professor  Park  attaches  a 
meaning  different  from  that  in  which  they  are  used  by 

*  Essays,  &c,  p.  546.  t  Ibid.,  p.  325.  %  Ibid.,  p.  543. 


SUBSTANTIAL   CHANGE   OF   DOCTRINE.  389 

theologians  of  the  Reformed  Church,  and  he  therefore 
unavoidably  misunderstands  and  misrepresents  their 
doctrines."  *  And,  not  to  leave  anything  to  be  sur- 
mised, he  adds,  once  more  :  "  His  articles  [in  reply  to 
Dr.  Hodge]  are  to  a  great  degree  characterized  by  eva- 
sions and  playing  with  words."  f  Yet  Princeton  must 
be  careful  of  its  consistency,  for  when  its  divines  are 
writing  with  different  aims  in  view,  they  are  apt  to  utter 
statements  which  even  metaphysics  cannot  reconcile. 
Thus  Dr.  Hodge  says  :  "  The  two  sentiments  of  com- 
plete helplessness,  and  of  entire  blameworthiness,  are 
perfectly  consistent,  and  are  ever  united  in  Christian  ex- 
perience"; f  and  also:  "  It  is  one  of  the  most  familiar 
facts  of  consciousness  that  a  sense  of  obligation  is  per- 
fectly consistent  with  a  conviction  of  entire  inability."  § 
But  in  the  Princeton  Essay  "  On  the  Decrees  of  God," 
we  read :  "  Every  man  of  sense  feels  that  he  cannot 
justly  be  accountable  for  what  he  could  not  possibly 
avoid."  Now  the  being  born  in  a  state  of  complete 
spiritual  helplessness  and  of  entire  inability  seems  so 
much  like  being  in  a  condition  which  we  "  could  not 
possibly  avoid,"  that  we  are  at  a  loss  to  see  how  any 
one  can  feel  that  he  is  entirely  blameworthy,  and  yet 
not  justly  accountable  for  it.  But  on  the  question 
whether  "the  substance  of  doctrine"  is  touched  in  the 
honorably  waged  contest  between  the  Princeton  and  the 
Andover  Professors,  we  will  allow  the  former,  who  un- 
mistakably holds  the  old  theology,  and  knows  what  it 
is,  to  decide.  He  says  :  "  To  say  that  the  sin  of  Adam 
is  imputed  to  his  posterity  [the  Princeton  creed]  is  to 
express  a  different  thought,  a  different  doctrine,  from 
what  is  expressed  by  saying  [with  Professor  Park]  that 
his  sin  was  merely  the  occasion  of  certain  evils  coming 
upon  his  race.      The  one  of   these  statements  is  not 

*  Essays,  &c,  p.  617.  J  Ibid.,  p.  36. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  625.  §  Ibid.,  p.  252. 

33* 


390  RECEPTION    OF   THE   NEW   THEOLOGY. 

merely  an  intense,  figurative,  or  poetic  expression  of 
the  thought  conveyed  by  the  latter.  The  former  means 
that  the  sin  of  Adam  was  the  judicial  ground  of  the 
condemnation  of  his  race,  and  therefore  that  the  evils  in- 
flicted on  them  on  account  of  that  sin  are  of  the  nature 

of  punishment There   is    here    a   real   distinction. 

These  two  modes  of  representing  our  relation  to  Adam 
belong  to  two  different  doctrinal  systems.  According  to 
the  one,  no  man  is  condemned  until  he  has  personally 
transgressed  the  law.  Every  man  stands  a  probation  for 
himself,  either  in  the  womb,  as  some  say,  or  in  the  first 
dawn  of  intelligence  and  moral  feeling.  According  to 
the  other,  the  race  had  their  probation  in  Adam ;  they 
sinned  in  him,  and  fell  with  him  in  his  first  transgres- 
sion. They  are,  therefore,  born  the  children  of  wrath ; 
they  come  into  existence  under  condemnation.  It  is  now 
asserted,  for  the  first  time,  so  far  as  we  know,  since  the 
world  began,  that  these  modes  of  representation  mean 
the  same  thing."  * 

Such  are  some  of  the  developments  of  the  New  The- 
ology. We  believe  that  its  latent  forces  and  workings 
reach  deep  into  the  minds  of  many  of  the  most  devout 
believers  and  the  most  efficient  Christian  laborers  in  the 
Church  of  Christendom.  Our  friends  of  the  old  school 
warn  us  against  supposing  that  the  restlessness  of  a  few 
speculative  minds,  here  and  there,  indicates  any  failure  in 
the  power  and  hold  of  the  orthodox  creed  as  the  gener- 
ally accepted  faith  of  that  Christendom.  We  ask  the 
liberty  of  being  allowed  to  form  our  opinion  on  that  point 
for  ourselves.  It  certainly  is  a  significant  fact,  that  the 
very  class  of  men,  the  more  thorough  scholars,  the  calmer, 
profounder,  and  more  earnest  and  independent  thinkers, 
who  were  once  the  builders  up  of  Orthodoxy,  — the  con- 
structed of  its  formulas, —  should  now  be  found,  in  all 

*  Essays,  &c,  pp.  592,  593. 


PROGRESSIVE   AND    POPULAR   VIEWS  391 

sections  of  the  Church,  engaged  upon  invalidating  the 
doctrinal  views  which  those  formulas  have  imparted  to 
the  people  at  large.  Such  influences  as  are  unmistaka- 
bly working  in  our  higher  religious  literature  will  sooner 
or  later  become  popular,  will  work  downwards.  It  may 
then  be,  that  something  will  be  offered  to  us  as  Ortho- 
doxy which  we  shall  pronounce  to  be  better  far  than 
Unitarianism,  —  something  which  we  can  receive  wTith 
the  same  sympathy  of  soul  and  cordiality  of  heart  with 
which  we  read  the  writings  of  those  who  are  construct- 
ing the  New  Theology  from  the  ruins  of  the  old. 

The  way  in  which  free  and  venturesome  speculations 
in  religious  philosophy  are  received  in  the  communions 
in  which  they  originate,  offers  much  that  instructs,  and  a 
great  deal  that  mortifies,  a  lover  of  the  truth.  There  are 
of  course  canons  of  good  sense  and  rules  of  caution  to 
be  recognized  here  ;  and  as  far  as  they  will  justify  a  rea- 
sonable conservatism  of  what  is  established,  and  a  dis- 
like of  all  that  is  unsettling  and  distracting,  they  may 
properly  be  brought  to  bear  against  some  who  love  to 
open  all  manner  of  unprofitable  questions.  There  are 
good  reasons  why  all  who  believe  in  any  system  of  re- 
ligious truth  may  wish  to  be  left  in  peace  to  enjoy  its 
comforts,  and  to  work  out  its  conditions  of  duty.  Es- 
pecially in  any  brotherhood  knit  together  by  the  sympa- 
thies and  interests  which  unite  a  fellowship  of  Christians, 
large  or  small,  will  dissensions  always  be  grievous.  Each 
member  is  held  bound  to  keep  himself  within  the  recog- 
nized formulas  and  methods  of  his  communion.  Any 
one  who  opens  dividing  issues,  and  pushes  his  own  free- 
dom beyond  the  limits  recognized  for  liberty,  and  intro- 
duces seditious  or  revolutionary  speculations,  will  always 
provoke  a  more  exciting  strife  than  if  he  assailed  his 
brethren  from  without.  There  are  ecceniric,  morbid,  and 
ambitious  promptings,  which  lead  the  subjects  of  them 
to  raise  schisms  in  their  own  fellowships.     Occasionally 


392  SECTARIAN   BONDAGE   AND    OBLIGATIONS. 

those  who  would  never  have  attracted  attention  or  won 
notoriety  by  a  quiet  fidelity  to  duty  within  the  rounds 
of  professional  labor,  will  blaze  out  into  public  fame  by 
adopting  a  heresy  or  by  stirring  a  strife.  There  are  always, 
in  a  large  community,  enough  persons  of  unsettled  mind, 
or  of  a  restless  temperament,  and  an  easy  sensibility,  to 
welcome  the  radicalisms  of  opinion.  Generally,  the  more 
startling  or  defiant  the  utterance,  the  greater  the  throng, 
and  the  more  keen  the  interest,  which,  till  the  novelty  is 
worn  away,  will  receive  it.  It  is,  however,  in  general,  a 
very  easy  exercise  of  common  sense  in  discerning  minds 
to  decide  whether  one  who  seeks  to  unsettle  an  estab- 
lished belief  is  influenced  by  a  pure  love  of  truth  or  by 
a  personal  impulse,  a  restless  disquiet  or  a  desire  of  no- 
toriety. He  whom  the  love  of  truth  makes  a  heretic  is 
modest,  gentle,  prudent,  slow,  and  considerate.  The 
reckless  speculator  is  rash,  contemptuous,  and  dogmat- 
ical. It  may.be  well,  therefore,  that  each  fellowship  of 
believers  should  be  naturally  jealous  of  the  rise  of  any 
heretical  speculations  within  its  own  communion,  when 
the  very  fundamentals  of  its  distinctive  system  are  put 
in  jeopardy.  It  is  not  all  theological  hate  that  is  called 
out  and  enlisted  against  free  speculations  under  such 
circumstances.  While  some  love  freedom,  others  love 
peace.  Those  who  are  supposed  to  be  united  in  alle- 
giance to  a  creed,  feel  as  if  they  were  consolidated  into 
a  structure ;  their  old  traditions,  and  their  venerated  au- 
thorities among  the  departed,  lying  deeply  buried  for 
foundations,  while  all  the  living  members  are  built  by 
joint  and  rule  into  the  solid  walls.  An  heretical  member 
makes  the  whole  structure  topple.  It  is  dangerous  to 
open  a  new  window  through  such  an  old  edifice,  even  if 
it  be  only  to  get  more  of  heaven's  own  light  and  air. 
There  is  something,  too,  that  strongly  resembles  pre- 
sumption, as  the  disciples  of  a  fossilized  creed  view  the 
matter,  in  the  attempt  of  any  speculating  mind  to  recast 


OPPOSITION   TO    FREE   THOUGHT.  393 

the  philosophic  or  doctrinal  formulas  of  a  faith  which 
have  stood  in  honor  for  long  ages. 

Allowing  all  that  is  reasonable  in  the  protests  and  the 
opposition  with  which  the  New  Theology  is  received  in 
the  communions  among  whose  more  advanced  members 
it  originates,  we  have  what  is  unreasonable  in  such 
opposition  still  left  to  be  defined  and  accounted  for. 
Were  the  work  to  our  taste,  we  could  open  here  a  rich 
budget  of  tempting  cases  with  which  to  illustrate  the 
matter  before  us.  But  our  readers  know  very  well  how 
all  orthodox  communions  receive  and  dispose  of  the 
heresies  that  always  have  risen  up  among  them.  True, 
these  manifest  themselves  in  our  day  in  so  many  ways, 
and  win  so  much  immunity  from  the  character,  position, 
and  influence  of  those  who  advance  them,  that  the  old 
inquisitorial  processes  are  somewhat  relaxed.  It  is  our 
firm  conviction  that  much  real  dissent  and  free  specula- 
tion is  now  held  in  prudent  reserve,  enjoyed  and  indulged 
secretly,  but  not  divulged.  We  believe  that  there  is 
relatively  a  vast  deal  more  latent  heresy  in  orthodox 
communions,  yes,  even  among  the  professors  of  theologi- 
cal schools,  than  has  ever  existed  before.  We  infer  this 
partly  from  the  tokens  which  manifest  themselves,  and 
partly  as  a  natural  consequence  of  the  way  in  which  all 
candid  utterances  of  bolder  minds  are  treated.  Ortho- 
doxy visits  some  of  its  most  bitter  censures  upon  those 
within  its  communion  who  have  practised  concealment 
about  their  lapse  from  its  creed,  and  who  occasionally 
are  entrapped  or  compelled  unwillingly  to  confess  the 
extent  of  their  heresies.  Does  Orthodoxy  suppose  that 
it  hunts  out  one  in  each  score  of  these  quiet  and  silent 
heretics  who  outwardly  conform  to  its  discipline  ?  But 
then  comes  up  the  question,  Is  this  silent  dissent,  this 
smothered  rebellion,  honest?  Doubtless  the  subjects  of 
it  are  perfectly  easy  in  conscience  under  their  secret  bur- 
dens.    They  know  the  price  to  their  own  peace  at  which 


394  BLIND   RESISTANCE   TO    TRUTH. 

they  would  have  to  make  avowals.  They  are  consistent 
Protestants  to  the  extent  of  believing  themselves  free  of 
all  human  responsibility  in  their  creeds.  They  too  have 
distinguished  between  religion  and  the  philosophy  of  re- 
ligion, and  have  a  way  of  satisfying  themselves  that  they 
may  still  hold  the  substance  of  a  creed  though  they  may 
object  to  all  the  terms  by  which  it  is  expressed.  Finally, 
these  secret  heretics  among  the  orthodox  consult  the  edi- 
fying and  practical  interests  of  religion.  They  know 
that  schisms  and  feuds  and  minor  controversies  among 
brethren  are  ruinous  to  the  temper  of  those  who  engage 
in  them,  are  occasions  of  scandal,  contempt,  and  unbelief 
to  the  world  at  large,  and  are  so  much  waste  of  the  re- 
sources of  true  piety.  The  way  in  which  Orthodoxy 
treats  avowals  of  free  and  dissentient  opinion  in  its 
communion,  is  a  bounty  on  concealment. 

But  how  preposterous  is  the  attempt  made  by  Ortho- 
doxy to  reconcile  its  demand  for  an  unswerving  alle- 
giance to  its  dogmatical  theology  with  a  fair  and  zealous 
use  of  all  the  new  means  for  the  attainment  of  truth. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  blind  and  obstinate  resistance 
now  made  in  Great  Britain  by  all  orthodox  sects,  with 
the  exception  of  a  very  few  of  the  most  intelligent  and 
candid  in  each,  to  the  proposed  revision  of  our  common 
version  of  the  Scriptures.  No  one  advocates  a  new  trans- 
lation, an  entire  substitution  of  another  English  version 
of  the  Bible.  All  the  acknowledged  beauties  and  excel- 
lences of  the  present  version  are  to  be  retained.  All  the 
fond  associations  connected  with  phrase  and  figure  and 
text  are  to  be  respected,  except  where  they  are  manifest- 
ly wrong  and  misleading.  Neither  the  Saxon  vigor,  nor 
the  antique  quaintness,  nor  the  homely  directness,  nor 
the  pointed  boldness,  of  the  received  version  is  to  be 
sacrificed.  The  aim  is  only  for  a  revision,  for  the  sake 
of  amending  undoubted  errors,  removing  obsolete  words, 
and  letting  in  light  wherever  there  is  unintelligible  ob- 


REVISION   OF   THE   ENGLISH   BIBLE.  395 

scurity.  Nor  is  it  proposed  to  have  this  revision  made 
under  any  favored  sectarian  auspices,  to  turn  it  into  a 
job  or  a  scheme  for  speculators  or  partisans,  or  to  the 
service  of  any  cause  save  the  highest  and  holiest,  —  the 
edification  of  all  persons  of  all  classes.  The  advocates 
of  the  measure,  being  found  chiefly  in  the  liberal  and 
progressive  party,  have  the  countenance  of  some  wise  and 
good  men  in  all  parties.  They  are  all  willing  that  the 
Established  Church,  the  prelates,  the  Universities,  should 
have  the  direction  of  the  work,  under  a  commission  from 
the  Parliament  or  the  Queen.  Now  let  any  one  read 
the  religious  journals  of  the  different  orthodox  sects, 
which  abound  in  more  or  less  extended  references  to  the 
project,  and  which  are  prevailingly  and  most  doggedly 
hostile  to  the  measure.  Scan  their  allegations,  their  ar- 
guments, their  reasons.  Weigh  their  objections,  mark 
their  appeals  to  prejudice,  their  evasion  of  unwelcome 
facts,  their  doubtful  and  false  assertions.  If  the  intent 
of  their  pleadings,  and  the  subject  on  which  they  are 
spent,  did  not  claim  for  their  writers  the  tolerance  of  a  re- 
spectful regard,  simply  because  a  religious  feeling,  how- 
ever mistaken,  is  involved  in  their  opposition,  one  might 
be  pardoned  for  using  the  severest  language  about  them. 
But  compare  their  opposition  to  this  measure,  and  the 
grounds  of  their  opposition,  with  their  professions  as 
Protestants.  They  call  the  Bible  the  Word  of  God,  and 
claim  liberty  for  all  to  read  it  and  interpret  it  in  the  fear 
of  God,  assured  of  finding  in  it  the  way  of  salvation. 
They  know  that,  owing  to  the  fallibility  and  the  imperfect 
means  at  the  disposal  of  those  who  translated  the  Bible 
from  the  original  tongues,  it  is  not  always  truly  rendered. 
They  know  that  a  large  number  of  new  manuscripts  are 
now  available  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a  more  exact 
text ;  that  the  Oriental  languages  have  been  cultivated  by 
modern  scholars  to  the  very  best  ends  ;  that  the  laws  of 
language,  the  principles  of  criticism,  the  manners  and 


396  PAPAL   PROTESTANTISM. 

customs  and  history  of  ancient  times,  have  been  so  faith- 
fully studied,  that  the  results  gained  from  them  must  be 
eminently  serviceable  in  the  proposed  measure.  Ortho- 
doxy in  its  own  way  favors  all  these  helps  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  Bible,  establishes  theological  schools, 
founds  professorships,  furnishes  libraries,  and  would  em- 
phatically maintain  that  all  these  means  ought  to  be  of 
some  service,  and  that  an  improvement  of  them  must 
enter  into  the  conditions  of  Christian  responsibility  for 
those  who  enjoy  them.  But,  marvellous  is  the  inconsist- 
ency !  Orthodoxy  most  resolutely  withstands  the  palpa- 
ble and  inevitable  consequences  of  its  own  principles  and 
methods.  The  noblest  result  to  which  all  these  applian- 
ces of  Scriptural  knowledge  could  culminate,  would  be  a 
more  exact  version  of  the  Scriptures.  But  no.  The  Bible 
shall  not  be  touched.  Its  inspiration  must  not  be  perilled. 
The  door  must  not  be  opened,  for  it  will  never  afterwards 
be  shut.  The  Spirit  shall  pour  no  more  light  upon  the 
Word.  The  detected,  exposed,  and  convicted  error,  the 
interpolated  corruption,  the  spurious  text,  shall  not  be 
rectified  or  expelled.  The  Word  of  God  shall  stand  im- 
paired and  vitiated,  not  only  by  mistakes  which  man  has 
unwittingly  introduced  into  it,  but  by  marked  and  evi- 
dent corruptions,  which  he  knows  very  well  how  to  purify. 
Such  is  the  opposition  of  Orthodoxy  to  an  amendment 
of  the  version  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  language  of  the 
dominant  race  and  people  of  Christendom,  —  a  version, 
too,  which  has  transferred  its  errors  into  the  versions  in 
all  the  heathen  tongues  into  which  the  Bible  Society  or 
missionaries  have  translated  it. 

What  hope,  then,  can  there  be  for  "  New  Theology," 
while  so  stout  and  blind  a  resistance  is  offered  to  an  at- 
tempt to  relieve  the  Bible  from  such  errors  as  man's 
ignorance  once  introduced  into  it,  though  his  own  added 
knowledge  is  so  well  qualified  to  remove  them  ?  The 
hope  would  indeed  seem  faint,  if  our  reliance  was   on 


DR.  TREGELLES  AND  DR.  DAVIDSON.        397 

anything  less  potent  than  the  undecaying,  resistless  en- 
ergy of  truth.  There  is'  much  indeed  to  dishearten  the 
champions  of  that  truth.  Let  any  one  interested  in 
studying  the  issue  now  so  intensely  working,  as  far  as  it- 
has  dared  to  manifest  itself,  in  the  orthodox  communions 
of  Great  Britain,  take  some  pains  to  inform  himself  on 
the  subject  by  reading  the  volumes  which  are  issued  as 
rapidly  as  will  allow  of  a  perusal.  Let  him  take,  for  in- 
stance, that  work  of  daring  impudence  and  ignorance, — 
"  Bible  Revision  and  Translation  :  an  Argument  for  hold- 
ing fast  what  we  have,"  by  Dr.  Cumming,  —  whose  popu- 
larity as  a  millenarian  preacher  in  London  and  whose 
fecundity  in  issuing  worthless  religious  books  are  phe- 
nomena of  equally  astounding  character.  Of  this  work 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Burgess,  the  liberal  and  learned  editor  of 
one  of  the  best  orthodox  periodicals  of  Great  Britain,  — 
"The  Journal  of  Sacred  Literature," — says:  "If  our 
readers  wish  to  see  how  far  sheer  impudence  can  carry  a 
man  in  the  field  of  ignorant  assertion,  let  them  read  Dr. 
Cumming's  book.  We  scarcely  dare  write  what  we 
think  of  this  production ;  but  we  will  bring  forward  two 
out  of  the  many  literary  and  historical  falsehoods  which 
it  contains."  * 

Or  take  another  instance.  In  the  pages  of  the  same 
valuable  and  scholarly  journal  from  which  we  have  just 
quoted,  Dr.  Tregelles  publishes  a  most  disgraceful  attack, 
in  the  form  of  a  letter,  upon  his  colleague,  Dr.  Davidson, 
in  the  task  of  re-editing  Home's  Introduction  to  the  Scrip: 
tures.  Our  opinion  of  Dr.  Tregelles's  scholarship  is  so 
high,  that  the  utmost  stretch  of  our  charity  will  not 
acquit  him  of  insincerity  and  duplicity  in  that  letter. 
He  must  know  that  Dr.  Davidson's  allowed  qualifications 
and  abatements  of  the  popular  notion  of  inspiration  can- 
not be  honestly  challenged.     The  spirit  of  his  letter  is 


*  Number  for  January,  1857,  p.  261, 

34 


398 

acrimonious  and  bigoted.  His  attempt  to  prove  that 
Wisdom,  as  personified  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  Proverbs, 
refers  to  Christ,  is  utterly  unworthy  of  him.  Dr.  Burgess 
is  to  be  commended  for  his  manly,  Christian  candor  in 
saying  of  this  letter,  to  which  he  gives  a  place  in  his 
journal,  that  Dr.  Tregelles  "  has  but  little  sympathy  with 

ourselves  in  the  line  of  argument  he  has  pursued 

We  cannot  now  enter  on  the  subject  further,  but  simply 
protest  against  Biblical  science  being  thrown  back  three 
centuries  by  a  sort  of  papal  intolerance.  The  way  in 
which  the  Record  has  treated  Dr.  Davidson,  and  is  treat- 
ing all  who  cannot  indorse  its  ignorant  and  bigoted  views, 
is  barbarous ;  not  only  unworthy  of  a  Christian,  but  dis- 
graceful to  a  free  country."  *  "  The  Record "  here  re- 
ferred to  is  the  title  of  a  tri- weekly  newspaper,  published 
in  London,  as  "  a  highly  remunerative  organ  "  of  the  Low 
Church,  or  Evangelical  party  in  the  Establishment,  and 
so  very  acceptable  to  the  corresponding  party  among  the 
orthodox  Dissenters.  Some  plain  words  about  this  noto- 
rious and  scandalous  paper  may  be  found  in  another  of 
those  fresh  and  earnest  volumes  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking.  Its  title  is,  "  Christian  Orthodoxy  reconciled 
with  the  Conclusions  of  Modern  Biblical  Learning :  a 
Theological  Essay,  with  Critical  and  Controversial  Sup- 
plements." Its  author  is  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  William  Don- 
aldson, late  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  He 
claims  still  to  hold  substantially  the  essential  doctrines  of 
his  Church,  but  there  is  a  bracing  vigor  of  thought,  an 
heroic  and  earnest  sincerity  of  utterance,  and  an  ability  of 
scholarship,  logic,  and  good  sense  brought  to  bear  in  his 
work  upon  the  rotten  elements  of  popular  belief  among 
Christians,  which  indicate  the  fullest  development  of  that 
new  spirit  whose  workings  we  have  been  attempting  to 
trace.     He  is  a  master  of  his  theme.     Cant,  superstition, 

*  Number  for  January,  1857,  pp.  483,  484. 


DR.  WILLIAMS  ON  INTOLERANCE.         399 

bigotry,  and  Jesuitical  agencies  in  religion,  receive  from 
him  an  honest  condemnation.  He  is  measured  and  dig- 
nified in  assailing  views  under  which  he  was  educated, 
but  which  he  knows  to  be  discredited  by  the  science  and 
intelligence  of  the  age.  As  his  work  has  but  just  ap- 
peared, we  know  nothing  of  the  way  in  which  it  has 
been  received  ;  but  that  way  will  be  stormy.  He  exposes 
most  ably  the  pretensions  and  fallacies  and  utter  incon- 
clusiveness  of  the  views  set  forth  by  Mr.  Lee  in  the 
work  on  Inspiration  to  which  we  have  already  referred. 
He  spares  none  of  the  shams  by  which  timid  theologians 
attempt  to  cover  and  evade  their  own  weak  points  or 
the  heavy  blows  of  their  assailants.  But  his  especial 
wrath  is  visited  upon  "  The  Record,"  before  named.  "  The 
malignity  and  falsehood,"  "  the  pitiable  weakness,"  "  the 
calumnious  personalities,"  "the  nefarious  conduct,"  "the 
intolerance,  folly,  and  slanderous  violence"  of  "this 
wretched  journal,"  are  indeed  hard  terms  to  be  used  in 
describing  a  religious  paper.  But  Dr.  Donaldson  offers 
most  melancholy  and  overwhelming  evidence  that  they 
are  not  inapplicable  to  a  journal  which  meets  every  man 
and  every  opinion,  not  in  sympathy  with  its  own  views, 
with  cruel  abuse,  or  ignorant  misrepresentation,  or  spite- 
ful bigotry. 

Take  one  more  striking  testimony  illustrative  of  the 
hateful  spirit  by  which  the  results  of  independent  and 
serious  Christian  study  and  thought  are  received.  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Rowland  Williams,  of  St.  David's  College, 
Lampeter,  the  author  of  that  admirable  volume  of  ser- 
mons entitled  "  Practical  Godliness,"  is  at  present  en- 
gaged upon  a  work  on  "  Christianity  and  Hinduism." 
This  profoundly  interesting  subject,  which  may  task 
the  scholarship  and  candor  of  the  ablest  mind  of  our 
age,  with  all  the  best  helps  of  native  talent  and  true 
culture,  has  been  intrusted  to  Dr.  Williams  by  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge.    He  is  well  aware  that  his  process 


400  GENERATIONS  MAKE  PROGRESS. 

of  treating  his  subject,  the  method  of  argument  he  will 
be  compelled  to  adopt,  the  concessions  he  must  yield, 
and  the  results  he  must  accept  and  commend  to  others, 
will  cause  an  intense  shock  to  the  prejudices  of  a  blind 
and  narrow  orthodoxy.  We  find  a  letter  from  him  to 
Dr.  Burgess,  in  the  journal  we  have  just  quoted,  the  ob- 
ject of  which  is  to  purify  some  of  the  vapors  of  the 
cloud  which  he  apprehends  with  good  reason  will  break 
in  vengeance  upon  him.  We  wish  that  our  space  would 
allow  us  to  transfer  his  letter  to  our  pages.  It  would 
convey  to  our  readers  more  forcibly  than  can  any  words 
of  ours  a  conception  of  the  pains  and  penalties  under 
which  the  purest  disciples  of  truth  in  conflict  with  pop- 
ular error,  prejudice,  and  superstition  are  compelled  either 
to  silence  and  heartless  conformity,  or  made  to  suffer 
for  their  loyalty  to  a  holy  cause.  One  sentence  from 
the  letter  must  suffice.  Dr.  Williams  says  :  "  Experi- 
ence has  taught  me  that  any  Anglican  divine  who  will 
write  honestly  as  a  scholar,  in  our  day,  does  so  with  a 
halter  about  his  neck." 

But  it  must  not  be  so.  It  is  so  only  because  the 
weakest  and  the  most  prejudiced  yield  to  what  is  the 
most  unworthy  and  unreasonable  among  the  meaner 
motives  that  influence  them.  Such  as  these,  however, 
profess  that  a  zeal  for  truth  instigates  their  opposition  to 
all  the  free  ventures  and  all  the  honest  efforts  of  inquiring 
minds.  Their  cure  is  in  their  own  hands.  They  must  in- 
struct their  own  ignorance  and  yield  themselves  up  to  the 
heart-work  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  not  wise  to  try  one's  tem- 
per or  to  waste  one's  time  upon  these  stiff  and  crabbed 
worshippers  of  the  infallibility  of  their  own  prejudices. 
A  good  Providence  has  appointed  that  there  shall  be  a 
change  in  human  generations,  and  so  that  new  truth  shall 
have  new  fields  in  fresh  minds.  The  things  which  are  no 
longer  susceptible  to  receiving  impressions  become  fos- 
sils and  get  buried,  while  the  glorious  and  beautiful  pro- 


THE    PREROGATIVES    OF    SOUL-FREEDOM.  401 

cesses  of  this  still  young  earth  are  wrought  upon  its 
living  germs  as  they  yield  to  the  divine  chemistry. 
He  is  no  true  believer,  no  real  disciple  of  Christ,  who 
identifies  the  everlasting  Gospel  with  the  metaphysical 
or  doctrinal  system  of  any  age,  —  least  of  all,  of  any 
past  age.  Why,  indeed,  should  we  attempt  to  resist  the 
maturer  workings  of  the  human  mind  upon  the  dogmas 
which  that  mind  fashioned  in  its  earlier  and  less  compe- 
tent efforts  ?  Why  should  we  discredit  the  views  and 
convictions  of  our  manhood,  because  they  are  in  conflict 
with  the  fancies  of  our  childhood  ? 

Certainly  the  human  mind  must  ever  be  allowed  to 
range  freely  over  that  wide  field  of  speculative  theology 
whose  blank,  unoccupied  spaces  it  has  itself  fenced  in 
and  bounded  and  divided  according  to  its  own  theories. 
Our  systems,  the  best  of  them,  are  but  human  devices, 
and  we  must  be  free  to  assail  and  reconstruct  them. 
Whatever  man's  thought  has  fabricated,  however  fixed 
and  unalterable  the  materials  which  it  has  wrought 
upon,  will  be  regarded  by  each  generation  of  thinkers  as 
something  which  they  have  a  perfect  right  to  take  apart, 
with  the  purpose  of  working  over  the  same  materials 
again  more  wisely,  more  truthfully.  No  one  can  ex- 
amine with  care  the  most  skilfully  constructed  system 
of  theology,  professedly  deduced  from  the  Bible,  without 
being  reminded  that  the  system  is  exposed  to  fallibility 
in  every  stage  of  its  development.  The  common  ground 
of  accordance  and  sympathy  among  Christians  will  in 
vain  be  sought  for  in  allegiance  to  any  speculative  sys- 
tem. The  bad  passions  which  have  been  enlisted  in 
controversy,  the  cumbersome  heaps  of  almost  worthless 
literature  which  have  been  accumulated  in  conducting 
it,  and  the  steady  increase  of  the  points  of  difference 
which  it  has  multiplied,  prove  that  neither  edification 
nor  harmony  is  to  be  sought  in  that  direction.  And  yet, 
in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  about  the  resistance  of 
34* 


402  CONCLUSION. 

dogmatism  and  acrimony  to  every  venture  made  by 
scholarly  and  scientific  criticism,  the  spirit  of  theologi- 
cal discussions  has  been,  of  late  years,  infinitely  softened 
and  dignified.  This  result  is  the  triumph  of  true  Chris- 
tian sentiment  over  the  hearts  of  those  who  are  seeking 
to  interpret  the  mind  of  Christ.  While  the  life  which 
he  manifested  and  the  truth  which  he  taught  are  ad- 
mitted to  be  the  best  of  all  our  materials  for  the  construc- 
tion of  a  system  of  theology,  while  the  deepest  and  ten- 
derest  motive  that  incites  the  inquiries  of  the  intellect  is 
to  come  nearer  to  the  spirit  of  his  doctrine,  we  must  feel 
that  it  is  safer  to  allow  than  to  restrain  the  liberty  of 
speculative  thought.  We  may  or  may  not  find  a  New 
Theology,  but  we  shall  be  better  disciples  of  Him  whom 
we  call  our  Master.  That  fellowship  of  Christians  with 
whose  doctrinal  views  our  own  assured  convictions  most 
nearly  accord,  have  had  enough  of  mere  liberty.  We 
are  content  now  to  forego  any  portion  of  it  that  may 
need  to  be  renounced,  for  the  sake  of  a  better  im- 
provement of  its  glorious  franchise.  We  therefore  look 
with  sincere  and  unprejudiced  interest  to  the  speculative 
and  scholarly  labors  of  the  advanced  minds  in  orthodox 
communions.  The  first-fruits  of  the  as  yet  not  fully 
developed  or  acknowledged  modifications  which  they 
have  already  made  of  their  system,  are  the  production 
of  many  valuable  works  which  are  highly  acceptable  to 
Unitarian  readers,  and  the  affording  of  pulpit  instruction 
in  all  our  great  cities  which  is  wholly  unobjectionable  to 
large  numbers  of  Unitarian  hearers.  May  God's  bless- 
ing be  on  their  labors,  to  keep  them  loyal  to  Him,  to 
Christ,  and  to  the  everlasting  Gospel  of  grace  and  re- 
demption. If  the  New  Theology  shall  prove  to  be  so 
much  truer  and  better  than  "  Unitarianism  "  as  to  oblit- 
erate the  sect,  whose  visible  increase  it  does  withstand, 
we  are  ready  to  welcome  it. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX 


The  pages  which  follow  are  designed  to  furnish  illustrations 
or  confirmations  of  the  views  already  presented. 

It  has  been  repeatedly  intimated  in  the  preceding  essays 
upon  some  very  important  themes  of  a  long-continued  contro- 
versy, that  one  prominent  object  of  this  new  discussion  of  them 
is  to  prove  how  the  results  of  the  most  advanced  Christian 
scholarship  and  culture  bear  on  the  old  issues.  If  competent 
and  sincere  inquirers  after  truth  find,  that,  after  debating  their 
differences,  they  cannot  harmonize  them,  they  ought  at  least  to 
gain  a  better  mutual  understanding  of  the  points  in  controversy 
between  them.  The  only  desirable  objects  to  be  gained  by  a 
review  and  a  re-statement,  from  time  to  time,  of  the  doctrinal 
positions  which  are  assumed  by  antagonistic  sects  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  are  a  more  distinct  apprehension  of  their  differ- 
ences, a  more  charitable  adjustment  of  their  relations,  and  a 
more  earnest  attempt  to  reconcile  their  strife.  It  would  be  no 
unfair  condition  for  those  whose  liberality  provides  the  resources 
of  Christian  scholarship  in  schools,  libraries,  and  funded  wealth, 
to  exact  of  their  favored  beneficiaries  that  they  should  be  bound 
to  reduce  these  lavish  means  of  intelligent  culture  to  practical 
uses.  The  most  practical  of  all  these  uses  is  the  promotion  of 
a  spirit  of  respectful  and  fraternal  regard  between  Christian 
scholars  and  teachers  whose  opinions  set  them  at  variance.  If 
that  spirit  is  secured,  it  will  help  more  than  will  any  attainments 
in  scholarship  or  any  skill  in  argument  to  insure  accordance  of 


406  APPENDIX. 

belief  in  the  essential  truths  which  make  the  substance  of  re- 
ligion. 

As  I  have  aimed  in  the  preceding  essays  to  trace  down 
the  discussion  of  the  controverted  topics  to  our  own  times,  I 
have  of  course  been  interested  to  note  how  the  present  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Orthodox  party  received  what  I  had  intended 
should  be  said  in  candid  and  respectful  terms  of  them.  I  am 
happy  to  find  that  I  have  been  regarded  by  those  who  have  re- 
marked upon  these  papers  as  having  kept  within  the  limits  of 
propriety,  and  as  having  respected  my  own  rules  for  approving 
what  is  useful,  and  for  condemning  what  is  hateful,  in  controver- 
sial discussions. 

A  series  of  seven  newspaper  articles  has  appeared  in  the 
Puritan  Recorder,  a  weekly  paper  published  in  Boston,  as  the 
organ  of  the  conservative  party  among  the  Orthodox  Congrega- 
tionalists,  in  which  I  find  some  courteous  and  friendly,  but  still 
adverse,  criticisms  upon  a  portion  of  the  contents  of  the  first  five 
of  these  Essays.  They  are  dated  between  September  11  and 
October  23,  1856.  These  communications  are  without  a  name, 
but  I  am  informed  by  good  authority  that  they  were  written  by 
a  distinguished  Professor  in  one  of  our  New  England  Orthodox 
Theological  Schools,  whom  I  know  as  a  personal  friend,  and 
esteem  highly,  as  does  the  community  in  general.  I  have 
thought  it  might  serve  the  interest  of  a  sacred  cause,  which  we 
both  should  put  higher  than  any  sectarian  object,  to  quote  here 
the  substance  of  his  criticisms,  and  to  follow  them  with  a  few 
additional  remarks.  I  must  respect  his  anonymous  personality, 
and  speak  of  him  as  my  critic. 


APPENDIX.  407 


DATE   OF  THE   UNITARIAN   CONTROVERSY  IN  MASSA- 
CHUSETTS. 

My  critic  opens  his  comments  with  terms  of  personal  courtesy 
to  myself  as  a  friend,  and  with  a  generous  recognition  of  my 
attempt  to  be  perfectly  candid  in  a  task  where  candor  is  sorely 
tested.  I  must  be  content  with  an  expression  of  my  gratitude 
for  all  such  acknowledgments  from  an  anonymous  writer  ;  the 
proprieties  of  the  case  will  not  allow  me  to  quote  them. 

The  first  point  which  he  raises  is  a  matter  of  date.  He  holds 
me  strictly  to  the  month  and  year,  which  would  make  the  Uni- 
tarian controversy  exactly  a  half-century  old.  Having  quoted 
my  opening  sentence,  he  adds  the  following  paragraphs  :  — 

"  We  are  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  time  here  specified  (Jan- 
uary, 1806)  as  the  commencement  of  the  Unitarian  Controversy 
in  Massachusetts.  That  there  was  Unitarianism  here  at  a  much 
earlier  period,  and  that  it  occasioned  more  or  less  of  controversy, 
Mr.  Ellis  knows  full  well ;  but  then  it  was  a  controversy,  like 
Indian  warfare,  with  an  invisible  foe.  The  smart  of  the  arrow 
was  occasionally  felt ;  but  the  hand  that  sent  it  was  unseen. 
Unitarianism  was  closely  concealed,  and  it  was  not  till  the 
spring  of  1815  that  it  was  drawn  from  its  hiding-places,  and 
1  the  war  was  opened  as  on  the  tented  field.' 

"  I  am  not  aware  that  the  controversy  assumed  any  new  phase 
or  feature  in  1806.  There  had  been  a  sharp  controversy  in 
1804,  respecting  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Ware  to  the  Hollis 
Professorship  of  Divinity  in  Harvard  College  ;  but  this  could 
hardly  be  called  a  Unitarian  controversy,  since  Dr.  Ware  had 
never  yet  declared  himself  a  Unitarian.  Nor  could  he  be  in- 
duced to  declare  himself,  pro  or  con,  at  the  time  of  his  election. 
His  ■  particular  principles,  though  often  asked  for,  were  not  dis- 
closed.' l  It  was  particularly  asked,  whether  he  was  a  believer 
in  that  important  doctrine,  the  Divinity  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ; 
but  the  reply  conveyed  no  precise  or  satisfactory  answer  on  that 
point.'  " 

To  this  criticism  I  answer,  that  it  was  the  perusal  of  the  very 
documents  which  he  quotes,  on  the  very  matter  to  which  he  re- 
fers,—  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Ware  to  the  Hollis  Professorship 
at  Cambridge,  —  that  suggested  to  me  the  date  assigned  to  the 


408  APPENDIX. 

controversy.  The  date  itself  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  ; 
nothing  that  I  have  written  on  the  subject  is  made  to  depend  upon 
the  exactness  of  a  date  in  time.  But  to  a  reader  of  this  genera- 
tion  it  is  obvious  that  the  discussions  in  the  Board  of  Overseers 
of  Harvard  College,  and  the  pamphlets  founded  upon  those  dis- 
cussions, did  in  fact  draw  out  into  direct  controversy  what  had 
long  before  been  a  latent  alienation  between  brethren  on  points 
of  Christian  doctrine.  On  that  occasion  Orthodoxy  was  for  the 
first  time  openly  withstood,  in  the  same  way  in  which  it  has 
since  been  withstood,  by  a  positive  refusal,  on  the  part  of  so- 
called  Liberal  Christians,  to  regard  its  dogmas  and  formulas  as 
authoritative  exponents  of  Christian  truth. 


II. 

DISAPPOINTMENT   OR   SUCCESS   OF   UNITARIANISM.      , 

The  next  point  made  by  the  critic  is  more  important.  He 
quotes  some  of  my  concessions,  beginning  with  that  on  page  6, 
where  I  admit  that  Unitarians  have  been  disappointed  in  their 
expectation  of  a  more  rapid  and  extensive  reception  of  their  dis- 
tinctive views.  I  am  not  disposed  to  take  back  my  admission. 
Unitarianism,  in  its  distinctive,  dogmatic  form,  has  not  won  the 
visible  and  triumphant  success  which  its  early  friends  believed, 
which  some  of  the  more  sanguine  of  them  predicted,  would 
attend  its  maturer  development.  The  amazing  revelations 
which  presented  themselves  of  the  deadness  and  incompetency 
of  Orthodoxy ;  the  protests  uttered  in  many  independent  quar- 
ters against  Calvinistic  doctrines  ;  the  feeling  of  inexpressible 
relief  which  a  more  liberal  and  Scriptural  faith  afforded  to 
thousands  of  devout  and  earnest  minds  and  hearts  ;  and  the  dis- 
tinguished position  and  abilities  of  those  who  declared  them- 
selves as  disciples  of  the  "  new  views,"  naturally  encouraged 
the  hope  that  such  auspices  were  propitious  of  a  signal  success, 
in  the  way  in  which  men  generally  define  success.  Success  of 
the  kind  expected  has  not  been  realized,  and  so  far  I  admitted 


APPENDIX.  409 

disappointment.  My  critic  had  not  space  to  quote  and  answer 
what  I  wrote  concerning  a  real  success  and  influence,  as  attained 
by  Unitarianism.  Orthodoxy  has  renewed  its  zeal.  But  it  has 
never  regained,  and  it  never  will  regain,  its.  relative  strength  in 
this  Commonwealth  at  the  time  when  the  old  Congregational 
body  was  ruptured.  With  the  increase  of  the  population,  there 
has  been  a  multiplication  and  a  subdivision  of  sects.  The  old 
New  England  spirit  of  faith  and  piety  works  through  other  than 
Calvinistic  manifestations.  Popular  influences  helped  by  for- 
eign influences,  a  perfect  freedom  in  speculation,  an  extensive 
prevalence  of  scepticism,  and  a  zeal  for  practical  reforms  and 
revolutions  which  has  been  kindled  outside  of  the  Orthodox 
Church,  have  brought  about  changes  to  which  Orthodoxy  has 
been  forced  to  accommodate  itself,  as  utterly  helpless  to  restrain 
them,  and  with  but  moderate  power  to  guide  them.  In  the 
mean  while  a  conviction,  which  it  would  be  very  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  root  out  of  the  minds  of  well-informed  Unitarians, 
assures  them  that,  through  good  literature,  social  influences,  and 
religious  teaching,  their  substantial  views  have  had  an  unspeak- 
able effect  upon  the  communities  where  they  have  been  brought 
into  antagonism  with  old-fashioned  Orthodoxy. 

My  critic  shall  speak  at  length  in  answer  to  what  I  have  said 
about  the  disappointment  realized  by  his  own  party  in  their 
expectations  when  the  controversy  opened. 

"  Mr.  Ellis  is  good  authority  as  to  the  early  expectations  and 
consequent  disappointment  of  the  Unitarians.  With  regard  to 
the  Orthodox,  he  does  not  seem  to  be  so  well  informed.  '  The 
Orthodox,  on  their  part,  expected  that  they  should. succeed  in 
putting  down  and  utterly  extirpating  Unitarianism,  by  identify- 
ing it  with  infidelity,  and  by  discrediting  all  its  show  of  argument 
from  Scripture  and  Christian  history,  if  not  from  reason.'  (p.  7.) 
With  regard  to  the  expectations  here  imputed  to  us,  I  am  sure 
that  they  are  considerably  exaggerated.  They  are  too  strongly 
expressed.  We  expected  no  great  and  startling  changes  ;  no 
general  and  sudden  conversions.  We  did  not  expect  to  '  put 
down  and  utterly  extirpate  Unitarianism.'  In  all  honesty,  I 
affirm,  so  far  as  concerns  myself,  (and  I  think  the  same  is  true 
of  my  brethren,)  that  our  expectations  thirty  years  ago  were 
not  very  different  from  the  results  now  actually  realized.  Be- 
lieving that  we  had  reason  and  religion  on  our  side,  we  did 
35 


410  APPENDIX. 

expect  that  the  truth  would  prevail  ;  that  our  churches  would  be 
increased  and  strengthened.  And  so  they  have  been.  We  did 
also  expect,  when  the  din  and  the  smoke  of  controversy  had 
measurably  passed  away,  that  a  portion  of  the  Unitarian  com- 
munity would  begin  to  see  the  truth,  and  to  acknowledge  it ; 
would  begin  to  feel  and  to  work  their  way  upward  into  the 
region  of  Evangelical  religion.  And  in  this  we  have  not  been 
disappointed,  —  I  trust  we  have  not.  We  certainly  find  some 
reputed  Unitarians  preaching  and  writing,  on  some  of  the  great 
truths  of  the  Bible,  in  a  strain  very  different  from  that  which 
formerly  prevailed,  —  in  language  not  very  unlike  that  of  their 
Orthodox  brethren.  At  the  same  time,  knowing,  as  we  did,  the 
force  of  prejudice  and  habit,  even  upon  sincere  and  honest 
minds,  we  thought  it  likely  that  another  portion  of  the  Unitarian 
community  would  maintain  their  position,  as  we  think  they  do, 
with  little  change,  unless  it  be  in  the  use  of  terms." 

My  reply  to  these  fairly  expressed  suggestions  must  be  brief, 
and  must  take  for  granted  some  degree  of  information  in  my 
readers  as  to  their  subject-matter.  Any  one  who  will  undertake 
the  hard  task  of  reading  the  old  controversial  pamphlets  on  the 
Orthodox  side  will  find  them  to  abound  in  the  most  scorching 
denunciations  of  Unitarians  as  infidels,  and  of  Unitarianism  as 
bald,  malignant,  and  wicked  infidelity,  and  with  the  most  con- 
fident predictions  that  a  very  short  time  would  prove  these  hate- 
ful charges,  and  result  in  the  utter  discomfiture  of  the  system. 
A  smile,  oftener  than  a  frown,  will  be  excited  now  by  the  read- 
ing of  these  spiteful  diatribes.  Yet  they  were  read  in  the  time 
of  them  by  some  of  the  most  devout  and  intelligent  Christian 
men  and  women  that  have  ever  adorned  our  pulpits,  our  col- 
leges, the  courts  of  justice,  the  high  places  of  magistracy,  the 
walks  of  honest  business,  the  humbler  callings  of  faithful  indus- 
try, and  the  retired  scenes  of  home.  These  denunciations  and 
predictions  were  read  as  the  sentence  pronounced  by  Orthodoxy 
upon  views  of  which  thousands  had  experimental  evidence  that 
they  were  the  truth  of  God  to  their  souls.  I  do  not  understand 
my  critic  as  denying  in  so  many  words  that  such  utterances 
were  made  by  Orthodoxy,  or  that  the  expectations  based  upon 
them  have  been  disappointed.  I  will  do  my  Orthodox  brethren 
the  justice  of  believing  that  they  are  glad  that  Unitarianism  has 
not  proved  so  awful  a  thing,  or  come  to  so  dreadful  a  catastrophe, 
as  they  once  asserted  and  predicted.     But  having  read  these 


APPENDIX.  411 

things  in  print,  indorsed  by  well-known  names,  I  cannot  allow 
any  one  to  plead  that  no  such  opinions  and  prophecies  were  once 
expressed,  and  that  they  have  not  been  disappointed. 

But  the  critic,  correcting  my  account  of  the  expectations  of 
the  Orthodox,  says,  they  did  expect  "  a  portion  of  the  Unitarian 
community  would  begin  to  see  the  truth,  and  to  acknowledge 
it,"  &c.  The  Unitarians  cherished  the  same  expectations  con- 
cerning the  Orthodox,  that  they  too  would  begin  to  see  the  truth. 
What  my  critic  so  kindly  regards  as  tokens  of  a  more  serious 
and  Evangelical  spirit  among  a  portion  of  the  Unitarians,  we  are 
apt  gratefully  to  refer  to  a  better  knowledge  of  our  views,  and  a 
dropping  away  of  the  scales  of  prejudice  among  the  Orthodox. 
Our  own  brethren  were  always  aware  that  their  "  use  of  lan- 
guage not  very  unlike  that  of  their  Orthodox  brethren,"  when 
dealing  with  "  some  of  the  great  truths  of  the  Bible,"  was  re- 
garded as  a  very  remarkable  phenomenon  by  their  opponents. 
Time  was  when  Unitarians  were  considered  trespassers  and  de- 
ceivers, if  they  ventured  to  use  the  dear  and  consecrated  terms 
and  phrases  of  a  traditional  piety.  The  Orthodox  imagined  that 
they  had  monopolized  or  appropriated  even  Scriptural  epithets 
and  texts,  by  having  assigned  to  them  an  interpretation  which 
might  claim  to  be  a  part  of  their  signification  for  ever  after.  It 
was  wicked  for  a  Unitarian  to  employ  the  language  in  which 
Orthodoxy  spoke  its  own  convictions.  Still,  the  Unitarians  would 
not  be  warned  off  the  sacred  precincts.  They  considered  that 
Bible  terms,  and  even  the  affectionately  treasured  phrases  of 
devotional  literature,  formed  a  part  of  the  common  stock  of  the 
language.  Orthodoxy  now  concedes  that  Liberal  Christians  feel 
at  liberty,  in  consistency  with  honesty,  to  use  such  terms  and 
phrases  ;  and,  instead  of  admitting  its  own  error  in  its  former 
charges  of  hypocrisy,  accounts  for  the  fact  by  supposing  some- 
thing like  a  reaction  among  Unitarians.  If  a  portion  of  the 
Unitarian  community  has  become  more  Evangelical,  it  is  a  cause 
for  gratitude.  But  the  supposed  result  is  not  to  be  admitted, 
even  though  alleged  to  the  credit  of  living  Unitarians,  if  it  is  to 
be  used  for  the  purpose  of  reflecting  a  censure  back  upon  some 
of  the  earlier  Unitarians.  There  were  among  them  men  and 
women  as  devout,  as  Evangelical,  as  earnestly  attached  to  a 
Scriptural  faith,  as  are  any  to  be  found  among  their  successors. 


412  APPENDIX. 

III. 

UNITARIANISM  AND   TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Another  of  the  expectations  which  my  critic  affirms  was 
entertained  by  the  Orthodox  was,  that  a  portion  of  the  Uni- 
tarians would  lapse  into  the  infidelity  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred to  as  the  predicted  issue  of  their  views  for  the  mass  of 
those  who  should  receive  them.  The  following  paragraph  is 
therefore  significant. 

"  There  was  still  another  result,  not  only  expected,  but  ex- 
pressly predicted.  It  was  predicted  by  Professor  Stuart,  and 
others,  thirty  years  ago,  that  many  Unitarians  —  the  young,  the 
adventurous,  the  men  of  impulse  and  progress  —  would  not 
long  remain  where  they  then  were.  They  would  drift  farther 
and  farther  away  from  the  letter  of  Scripture  and  the  restraints 
of  the  Gospel,  until  they  arrived  at  the  very  borders  of  open 
infidelity.  And  neither  in  this  have  we  been  disappointed.  We 
have  seen  it  all  verified  before  our  eyes ;  and  Mr.  Ellis  has  seen 
the  same.  There  are  ministers  around  him,  calling  themselves 
Unitarians,  with  whom  he  would  not  exchange  pulpits  more 
than  we  should,  —  with  whom,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  more  serious 
part  of  his  brethren  have  no  longer  any  Christian  fellowship." 

The  implication  conveyed  in  this  paragraph  is  that  the  form 
of  scepticism  known  among  us  by  the  misused  term  Transcen- 
dentalism, was  the  natural  outgrowth  of  Unitarianism.  This 
charge  has  often  been  boldly  made,  and  more  often  insinuated. 
It  has  no  just  foundation.  Plain  facts  disprove  it.  The  differ- 
ences between  Orthodoxy  and  Unitarianism  arise  from  questions 
of  interpretation  ;  questions  about  the  meaning  of  sacred  records 
whose  value  and  authority  are  admitted  by  both  parties,  and 
which  Unitarians  have  always  shown  themselves  so  zealous  to 
maintain,  that  they  have  produced  works  of  acknowledged  su- 
periority in  defence  of  revelation  and  the  Scriptures.  Tran- 
scendentalism, so  called,  denies  a  revelation,  pronounces  its 
miraculous  sanctions  to  be  philosophically  impossible  and  ab- 
surd, and  subverts  the  authority  of  Scripture.  The  relations 
between  the  three  parties  —  the  Orthodox,  the  Unitarians,  and 
the  Transcendentalists  —  on  the  subject-matter  of  revelation 
may  be  illustrated  by  a  reference  to  the  relations  of  three  other 


APPENDIX.  413 

parties  among  us  concerning  a  political  question.  We  have 
two  large  parties  divided  by  a  very  serious  issue  touching  the 
organic  provisions  of  the  Federal  Constitution  and  the  functions 
of  Congress  on  slavery,  and  all  the  debates  and  agitations  con- 
nected with  it.  Does  or  does  not  the  Constitution  recognize  and 
legitimate  slavery,  and  implicate  all  the  States  in  its  allowed 
existence  in  some  of  them,  and  expose  free  territory  to  be  over- 
run by  it  ?  Has  or  has  not  Congress  power  to  discuss  the  sub- 
ject, and  legislate  upon  it  ?  Qn  this  issue  our  two  prominent 
parties  are  divided.  They  make  it  a  question  of  the  interpre- 
tation of  an  instrument,  through  its  own  plain  or  obscure  provis- 
ions and  through  the  known  views  of  its  authors.  Both  parties 
profess  to  accept  and  recognize  and  honor  the  Constitution. 
They  are  willing  to  receive  its  fair  and  decisive  meaning,  when 
intelligently  expounded,  as  authoritative,  as  binding  upon  them 
in  all  their  political  relations.  They  will  not  go  behind  the 
Constitution,  nor  dispute  it,  nor  resist  it.  In  the  mean  while  a 
third  party  presents  itself,  which  declares  that  the  Constitution  is 
pro-slavery,  that  it  implicates  all  our  citizens  in  the  iniquity  of 
slavery,  and  therefore  that  it  must  be  denounced  and  subverted. 
This  third  party,  therefore,  plants  itself  outside  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. The  two  former  parties,  so  far  as  the  parallel  is  designed 
to  illustrate  one  point  of  resemblance,  may  be  regarded  as  rep- 
resenting the  Orthodox  and  the  Unitarians,  as  divided  by  ques- 
tions about  the  interpretation  of  records  and  documents  whose 
peculiar  authority,  value,  and  sanctions  they  agree  in  venerating. 
Their  disputes  centre  upon  and  are  to  be  decided  by  criticism 
and  exposition.  The  third  party,  just  referred  to,  represents  the 
Transcendentalists,  who  insist  that  the  Bible  is  committed  to  an 
unphilosophical,  incredible,  and  impossible  theory  of  miracles, 
and  that  they  must,  therefore,  reject  it  and  plant  themselves  out- 
side of  it.  Now  with  what  justice  can  the  Orthodox  confound 
Transcendentalists  with  Unitarians,  and  condemn  the  latter  for 
complicity  with  the  former  in  a  theory  of  unbelief  which  comes 
not  from  methods  of  criticism  and  exposition,  but  from  philo- 
sophical speculation  ? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  too,  Transcendentalism,  so  called,  and 
even  New  England  Transcendentalism,  was  not  the  outgrowth 
35* 


414  APPENDIX. 

of  Unitarianism,  but  an  imported  product  that  had  been  devel- 
oped from  German  Lutheranism.  A  few  young  New  England 
Unitarians  have  attracted  attention  to  themselves  in  connection 
with  their  adoption  of  that  form  of  philosophical  scepticism,  be- 
cause of  their  eminent  talents  as  men  of  marked  endowments. 
But  very  many  of  the  undistinguished  Orthodox  have  adopted 
the  same  views  independently  of  Unitarianism.  It  would  be  an 
ungracious  office  to  attempt  a  statistical  estimate  of  the  propor- 
tionate addition  to  the  ranks  of  infidelity  which  has  accrued  from 
Unitarianism  or  Orthodoxy.  For  myself,  I  have  no  doubt  on 
that  point.  u  Secularism,"  i.  e.  Atheism,  in  England  numbers 
millions  of  adherents.  Its  leaders  came  from  under  the  most 
thorough  Orthodox  training.  Those  who  compose  its  ranks 
were  never  under  the  influence  of  Unitarianism.  But  Unita- 
rianism is  laboring  earnestly,  and  with  better  promise  of  success 
than  any  other  sect  has  yet  realized,  to  reclaim  the  Secularists. 
Professor  Stuart's  prediction  has  not  been  verified  among  the 
Unitarians  to  the  extent  of  its  verification  among  the  Orthodox. 
Justice  Story  and  Dr.  Channing  both  tell  us,  in  their  Memoirs, 
that  Unitarianism  saved  them  from  the  infidelity  to  which  Or- 
thodoxy had  exposed  them  as  young  men.  What  saved  them 
has  saved  thousands. 

My  critic  receives  with  kindly  reciprocation,  and  with  some 
remarks  which  I  need  not  quote,  other  concessions  of  mine, 
expressing  regrets  for  the  embitterment  and  arrogance  exhibited 
by  some  Unitarians  in  the  controversy,  and  acknowledging  some 
proved  deficiency  in  the  working  power  of  Unitarianism.  I  need 
not  meet  his  suggestion  which  refers  this  deficiency  to  a  lack  of 
belief  in  some  Gospel  truths,  for  he  has  not  observed  my  sug- 
gestion as  to  the  more  marked  deficiency  of  Orthodoxy.  I  pass 
to  the  closing  paragraph  of  his  first  paper,  which  relates  to 


APPENDIX.  415 

IV. 

THE  LEGAL  DECISIONS  IN  CASES  OF  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 

"  But  the  most  important  concession  which  we  find  in  these 
articles',  is  that  relating  to  the  old  decisions  of  the  courts  respect- 
ing church  property.  These  decisions  are  still  unrevoked,  and 
the  younger  portion  of  the  community,  Unitarian  and  Orthodox, 
may  not  know  precisely  what  they  are.  They  grew  out  of  the 
separation  between  the  Unitarians  and  Orthodox,  from  twenty-five 
to  thirty  [forty]  years  ago.  In  the  progress  of  this  separation,  it 
sometimes  happened  that  a  church  and  a  parish,  which  had  long 
co-operated  in  the  support  of  public  worship,  could  agree  to  do 
so  no  longer.  The  parish  would  call  a  Unitarian  minister,  the 
church  by  a  large  majority  would  refuse  to  concur.  The 
parish,  unwilling  to  recede  from  its  vote,  would  go  on  and 
settle  the  Unitarian  minister ;  and  the  church,  in  regular 
church  meeting,  and  by  a  strong  major  vote,  would  decide  to 
withdraw  from  the  parish.  They  claimed  the  right,  as  a 
distinct  and  independent  body,  and  a  quasi  corporate  body,  to 
withdraw,  and  to  carry  their  records  and  their  property  with 
them  ;  expecting,  of  course,  to  leave  all  parish  property  behind. 
But  the  parishes  thus  left  were  not  content  with  holding  their 
own  property  ;  they  claimed  also  the  property  of  the  church. 
They  sued  for  it,  and  in  repeated  instances  recovered  it.  The 
ground  taken  by  the  courts,  in  opposition  to  all  reason  and  Scrip- 
ture, to  precedents  and  history,  was,  that  a  Congregational 
church  is  a  mere  appendage  of  the  parish  ;  that  it  cannot  ex'st 
separate  from  the  parish  ;  that  it  may  think  to  withdraw  and 
retain  its  property,  but  it  cannot  do  it;  that  the  few  church- 
members  which  remain  are  legally  the  church  ;  or  if  none  re- 
main, the  parish  may  proceed  and  gather  a  church,  which  shall 
succeed  to  all  the  rights  of  the  property  of  the  seceding  body. 
Such  was  the  ground  of  these  decisions,  and  on  this  ground 
church  after  church  was  plundered  of  its  property,  even  to  its 
communion  furniture  and  records.  We  called  this  proceeding 
plunder  thirty  years  ago.  We  call  it  by  the  same  hard  name 
now.  And  we  solemnly  call  upon  those  Unitarian  churches, 
which  are  still  in  possession  of  this  plunder,  to  restore  it.  They 
cannot  prosper  with  it.  And  we  call  upon  the  courts  of  Massa- 
chusetts to  revoke  these  unrighteous  decisions,  and  put  the  Con- 
gregational churches  of  the  State  upon  their  original  and  proper 
basis.     And  in  this  call,  the  editor  of  the  Christian  Examiner,  if 


416  APPENDIX. 

he  is  consistent,  will  not  longer  fail  to  unite.  For  he  says  : 
1  We  do  not  feel  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  legal  decisions  in 
two  cases,  bearing  upon  the  ownership  of  church  property, 
though  we  admit  that  the  issue  raised  was  quite  a  perplexing 
one.,,,  (p.  31.) 

As  my  critic  has  gone  so  largely  into  this  subject  of  the  liti- 
gation concerning  church  property,  and  has  made  such  strong 
assertions  in  reference  to  the  legal  decisions  which  established 
what  he  regards  unjust  claims,  I  must  make  a  brief  reference  to 
the  subject.  He  has  pressed  my  admissions  beyond  their  rea- 
sonable and  fair  construction.  That  the  issue  raised  was  so 
perplexing  a  one,  as  I  have  said,  relieves  the  decisions  of  our 
highest  legal  tribunals  from  the  imputation  of  injustice,  and  yet 
makes  it  not  inconsistent  for  me  to  add,  that  I  do  not  feel  per- 
fectly satisfied  with  them.  I  will  state  the  strongest  case  possi- 
ble to  illustrate  the  legal  operation  of  those  decisions.  Suppose 
that  in  one  of  our  best  established  Unitarian  societies,  worship- 
ping in  a  meeting-house  built  by  the  voluntary  contributions  of 
its  members,  a  portion  of  them,  being  a  minority,  should  form 
themselves  into  a  church  body,  or  fellowship  of  communicants, 
under  a  strictly  Unitarian  covenant.  Suppose  that  these  com- 
municants assess  themselves  for  the  purchase  of  a  costly  service 
of  communion  plate,  and  that  one  or  more  of  them  bequeath 
a  fund  equal  to  sustaining  all  the  expenses  of  supporting  relig- 
ious institutions  in  the  parish.  Suppose  further,  that,  on  the 
death  or  retirement  of  the  Unitarian  pastor,  a  majority  of  the 
owners  of  pews  in  the  meeting-house  see  fit  to  invite  an  Ortho- 
dox, Methodist,  or  Baptist  minister  to  become  the  pastor,  and 
that  the  members  of  the  church,  without  a  single  exception,  pro- 
test against  the  measure,  insist  that  the  vacancy  should  be  filled 
by  a  Unitarian,  and,  failing  to  carry  their  point,  retire  unani- 
mously, and  establish  worship  and  the  ordinances  in  a  new 
meeting-house,  hall,  or  dwelling,  within  a  rod  of  their  old  temple. 
Our  Supreme  Court  has  decided  that,  in  retiring,  they  go  as  in- 
dividuals, not  as  the  church  body,  and  must  leave  or  surrender 
up  the  recently  purchased  plate,  and  the  recently  founded  be- 
quest to  the  parish  within  which  the  communicants  had  been 
gathered,  to  be  used  by  a  new  fellowship,  pledged,  as  the  case 


APPENDIX.  417 

may  be,  by  an  Orthodox,  Methodist,  or  Baptist  covenant.  There 
is  no  denying  that  the  first  aspect  of  such  a  decision  is  that  of 
gross  injustice,  high-handed  oppression,  aggravated  by  virtual 
sacrilege.  And  what  was  the  ground  of  the  decision  ?  Simply 
this,  as  defined  by  Chief  Justice  Parker,  in  the  Dedham  case, 
1820,  that  "  a  church  cannot  subsist  without  some  religious 
community  to  which  it  is  attached."  I  have  supposed  a  case 
in  which  a  Unitarian  church  fellowship  would  be  deprived  of  its 
ecclesiastical  property  this  very  year,  by  the  precedent  estab- 
lished by  that  decision.  The  illustration  will  help  us  to  under- 
stand how  odious  and  oppressive  the  decision  seemed  to  some 
of  the  Orthodox  party  when  it  took  effect  by  favoring  the  Uni- 
tarians in  the  sharpest  crisis  of  the  controversy.  Now  let  us 
look  at  the  matter  under  its  original  bearings. 

When  a  party  of  men  with  their  families  proposed  to  plant  a 
new  town,  settlement,  or  precinct  within  the  limits  of  this  Com- 
monwealth, they  addressed  a  petition  to  the  General  Court  for 
a  grant  of  land  in  the  wilderness.  Receiving  their  warrant,  and 
reaching  their  destination,  they  proceeded  to  allot  the  land,  in 
parcels  of  upland,  meadow,  and  woodland,  to  the  members  of  the 
company,  according  to  a  fair  rule  of  division.  They  set  apart 
the  dreariest  and  bleakest  spot,  provided  it  was  sandy  for  easy 
digging,  and  worthless  for  culture,  for  a  burial-ground.  Other 
lots  were  staked  off  for  the  meeting-house,  the  school-house,  the 
pound,  the  parsonage,  and  the  ministerial  wood-lot.  A  tax  was 
then  levied  upon  the  inhabitants,  according  to  their  property,  to 
open  roads,  to  build  a  meeting-house  and  a  school-house  ;  and  a 
tax  was  annually  imposed  to  keep  these  works  in  repair,  and  to 
support  the  minister  and  to  pay  the  schoolmaster.  So  far,  of 
course,  no  distinction  was  made  founded  on  church  relations. 
The  roads,  the  meeting-house,  the  minister,  and  the  school  en- 
tered into  the  public  burdens.  In  some  cases  a  church  body,  the 
members  of  which  had  already  entered  into  a  covenant,  made  the 
new  settlement  in  their  religious  capacity,  and  formed  the  nucleus 
of  a  religious  society,  which,  being  joined  by  new-comers,  and 
by  the  uncovenanted  members  of  the  families  of  the  communi- 
cants, laid  the  foundation  of  religious  institutions  in  the  precinct. 
The   meeting-house,  however,  was  built,  and  all  the   expenses 


418  APPENDIX. 

connected  with  religious  institutions  were  defrayed,  by  the  tax 
on  all  the  inhabitants,  as  before.  In  other  cases  a  church  body 
was  gathered  in  and  from  the  uncovenanted  membership  of  a 
parish  or  religious  society.  In  all  cases,  whether  the  church 
had  been  the  nucleus  of  the  society,  or  culled  from  out  of  it, 
it  became  an  imperium  in  imperio.  It  established  its  own 
terms  for  the  admission  of  new  members.  As  the  judgment, 
charity,  and  zeal  of  those  who  from  time  to  time  were  in  com- 
munion dictated,  these  terms  might  be  lax  or  rigid,  might  en- 
ter into  minute  specifications  of  doctrine  conformed  to  the 
Calvinistic  formulas,  or  be  cast  into  a  more  free  and  general 
form  ;  might  take  Calvinism  for  granted,  by  using  phraseology 
implying  it,  or  insist  upon  it  emphatically,  or  else  might  allow 
virtually  or  expressly  a  greater  or  less  liberty  in  the  range  of 
belief.  All  the  inhabitants  were  compelled  to  support  and  at- 
tend public  worship,  but  the  right  or  privilege  of  a  participation 
in  the  ordinances  was  exclusively  within  the  refusal  or  the  gift 
of  those  who  had  already  secured  the  prerogative  to  themselves. 
The  existing  church  for  the  time  being,  from  year  to  year,  and 
from  week  to  week,  had  an  unrestrained  liberty  to  modify  the 
terms  of  its  covenant.  The  voice  of  the  majority  would  ratify 
any  change  in  its  doctrinal  definitions,  or  in  the  stress  of  its 
provisions  for  making  members  mutually  subject  to  each  other's 
oversight.  True,  there  was  a  theory  on  this  matter,  reinforced 
by  a  platform,  and  professedly  based  upon  texts  of  Scripture, 
which  seemed  to  warrant  an  assumption  of  apostolic  authority 
for  the  New  England  model.  But  this  did  not  hinder  the  prev- 
alence of  a  great  variety  of  usages  as  regards  covenants,  nor 
impair  the  actual  independency  of  the  churches,  nor  restrain 
the  freedom  of  opinion  among  individual  members.  If  it  was 
thought  desirable  to  alter  the  terms  of  any  church  covenant,  to 
resist  an  insidious  heresy  by  a  more  stringent  definition  of  Or- 
thodoxy, or  to  license  an  advancing  liberality  by  yielding  what 
Protestantism  from  the  first  pretended  to  claim,  —  the  right  of 
private  judgment,  —  the  proposition  was  made  ;  the  vote  was 
taken,  and  the  decision  was  in  force. 

The  church  body,  thus  established  and  perpetuated  within  a 
parish,  received   its  appellative  name  from  the  parish,  or  the 


APPENDIX.  419 

town,  or  the  precinct,  in  which  it  was  gathered.  Sometimes 
lands  and  funded  property  were  set  apart,  and  taxes  were  im- 
posed, by  vote  of  the  freemen  of  a  town,  on  the  estates  of  all  in- 
habitants for  the  support  of  "  the  church  "  in  that  town.  Indi- 
viduals, sometimes  members  of  the  church,  and  sometimes  not, 
left  bequests  for  religious  uses,  the  destination  of  which  was 
variously  defined  as  for  "  the  town,"  "  the  parish,"  "  the  relig- 
ious society,"  or  "  the  Church  of  Christ,"  in  this  or  that  pre- 
cinct. Parish  property  and  church  property,  however  distin- 
guished in  terms,  was  in  early  times  designed  and  used  for  the 
same  purposes.  A  question  warmly  debated  between  the  parties 
to  the  controversy  referred  to  in  these  pages  was,  whether  or 
not,  by  the  laws  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  church  body,  the 
fellowship  of  communicants  in  a  parish,  composed  a  full  corpo- 
ration, with  corporate  powers  independent,  within  its  own  range, 
of  the  parish.  Our  courts  decided  the  question  in  the  negative. 
But  the  merits  of  the  question  were  complicated  by  historical 
and  conventional  references  and  usages.  It  was  maintained  by 
one  party  that  the  church  was  of  paramount  importance,  as  it 
called  into  existence  the  congregation  or  religious  society,  and  set 
up  the  ordinances  for  establishing  a  Gospel  work  in  the  precinct. 
It  was  replied  by  the  other  party,  that  the  church-members 
had  from  the  first  usurped  an  undue  power,  which  was  oppres- 
sive, in  sacred  things,  and  had  gone  the  lengths  of  utter  tyranny 
in  secular  matters  by  restricting  the  franchise  to  communicants. 
A  variety  of  customs  and  of  statutes  had  regulated  the  rela- 
tions and  respective  rights  of  parishes  and  the  churches  con- 
nected with  them.  In  the  beginnings  of  things  here,  circum- 
stances alone  had  disposed  of  these  matters,  and  the  usage  had 
been  various.  The  first  law  passed  on  the  subject  gave  the 
choice  of  the  minister  to  the  communicants,  but  compelled  the 
parish  to  support  him.  Then  each  party  had  a  right  to  a  sepa- 
rate vote,  the  church  taking  the  precedence.  Then  it  was  pro- 
vided, that,  if  the  society  in  any  case  dissented  from  and  with- 
stood the  choice  of  a  minister  made  by  the  church,  a  council  from 
sister  churches  should  be  convened,  and  its  decision  should  be 
binding  on  the  society  if  in  accordance  with  the  choice  of  the 
church,  and  upon  the  church  if  it  favored  the  choice  made  by 


420  APPENDIX. 

the  society.  Afterwards  a  concurrent  vote,  and  then  a  joint 
vote,  seem  to  have  gained  prevalence,  as  a  sort  of  compromise 
between  custom  .and  law.  The  deacons  of  a  church  were,  in 
1754,  constituted  a  quasi  corporation,  for  the  sake  of  holding 
and  administering  funds  for  church  uses. 

As  changes  in  religious  sentiment,  and  the  legitimate  exercise 
of  Christian  liberty,  advanced  with  the  growth  and  expansion  of 
our  communities,  it  was  easy  to  foresee  that  difficulties  would 
arise  from  the  relations  between  parishes  and  the  churches 
formed  in  them,  when  a  strife  should  be  opened  that  was  embit- 
tered by  sectarian  passion,  and  vitiated  by  a  prize  in  the  shape 
of  property.  Some  of  the  churches  and  parishes  in  the  Com- 
monwealth had  large  funded  possessions.  The  ministerial  land 
and  wood-lot,  the  parsonage,  the  money  at  interest,  the  meeting- 
house, and  the  communion  plate,  had  rival  claimants.  Where 
the  society,  the  church-members,  and  the  minister  all  yielded 
to  an  extending  liberalism  in  religion,  no  conflict  would  arise. 
When  church  and  society  had  a  prevailing  element  of  liberalism, 
even  if  the  minister,  who  had  a  life  tenure  of  office,  remained 
Calvinistic  and  rigid,  it  was  necessary  only  to  wait  the  event  of 
his  death  to  secure  a  new  and  liberal  pastor,  and  to  relax  the 
terms  of  the  covenant.  Where  the  minister  held  to  an  unabated 
Calvinism,  and  his  church  sympathized  with  him,  of  course  no 
new  members  could  pass  the  ordeal  of  the  covenant  without 
acceding  to  the  terms  required  of  a  member  of  the  congregation 
for  securing  the  privilege  of  church  communion.  Thus  all  the 
parishioners  who  held  liberal  views  were  excluded  from  the 
church.  The  large  majority,  the  whole  of  the  uncovenanted 
members  of  the  society,  might  become  unorthodox ;  the  church 
might  dwindle  to  a  mere  handful,  and  retain  its  rigid  orthodoxy ; 
and  under  this  state  of  things  a  vacancy  might  occur  in  the  pul- 
pit and  pastorate.  Of  course,  the  parish,  who  were  to  attend  on 
the  ministrations,  and  afford  the  entire  support,  by  tax  or  from 
income  of  funds,  of  a  new  minister,  would  by  vote  make  choice 
of  one  whose  religious  views  accorded  with  their  own.  The 
church  might  convene  and  choose  a  pastor,  to  whom  the  parish 
would  refuse  a  hearing,  or  might  content  itself  with  dissenting 
from  the  parish  choice:     What  was  to  be  done  ?      It  was  clear 


APPENDIX.  421 

that  the  parish  had  a  right  to  say  who  should  and  who  should  not 
occupy  its  meeting-house,  derive  a  support  from  a  tax  imposed 
on  its  members  and  from  funds  in  their  keeping,  and  stand  in 
the  relation  of  a  religious  teacher  and  friend  to  them  and  their 
families.  If  the  members  of  the  church  in  the  parish,  being  a 
minority  of  the  parish  voters,  withstood  the  choice  of  the  society, 
they  had  the  same  right  to  withdraw,  and  to  organize  another 
society,  as  belonged  to  any  minority  of  the  parishioners,  inde- 
pendently of  covenant  relations.  But  suppose  the  church  so 
withdrawing  claimed  a  right  to  take  with  it,  and  appropriate  for 
its  new  institution,  a  ministerial  fund  which  had  been  given  in 
terms  designating  "  the  Church  of  Christ "  in  this  or  that  pre- 
cinct or  parish.  It  was  comparatively  easy  to  resist  this  claim,, 
on  the  ground  that  the  design  of  the  fund  was  to  support  the- 
ministry  in  that  parish.  But  suppose  the  church,  or  the  large 
majority  of  its  members,  grieved  by  "  the  decline  of  piety,"  and 
irritated  by  an  embittered  religious  quarrel,  should  turn  their 
backs  upon  the  old  meeting-house,  and  upon  its  new  heretical 
minister,  and,  assembling  in  private  dwelling,  hall,  school-house, 
or  rival  temple,  should  spread  the  sacramental  table  with  the  old 
vessels  consecrated  by  the  faith  and  fellowship  of  the  dead,  or 
purchased  the  year  before  by  their  own  contributions,  and  should 
open  the  record  book  of  covenants  and  acts  of  church  discipline  ; 
have  they  not  a  right  to  this  remnant  of  their  traditional  privi- 
leges, to  these  peculiar  possessions  of  theirs,  in  which  the  parish 
had  no  interest,  and  had  never  used  or  touched  ?  Our  courts 
answered  this  question  in  the  negative.  The  new  minister  and 
the  old  parish  may  proceed  to  organize  a  new  church  body,  with 
new  deacons,  who  may  institute  a  legal  process  against  the  dea- 
cons of  the  retiring  church,  to  obtain  possession  of  the  commun- 
ion vessels,  the  church  fund,  and  the  records. 

I  have  stated  a  hypothetical  case,  with  all  the  aggravations 
which  could  possibly  attach  to  it.  I  will  now  proceed,  not  for  a 
controversial,  but  for  an  historical  purpose,  to  report  the  sub- 
stance of  the  case  which  actually  came  before  our  courts,  and 
drew  out  the  decision  which  established  the  legal  precedent. 
Its  date  is  at  a  Law  Term  of  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, October,  1820.  The  issue  concerned  the  right  of 
36 


422  APPENDIX. 

property  in  certain  ecclesiastical  funds.  For  the  sake  of  bringing 
the  case  to  a  decision  on  the  first  principles  which  it  involved, 
the  point  was  conceded,  —  though  it  might  have  been  challenged 
and  disproved,  ■ —  that  a  majority  of  members  previously  in  com- 
munion with  the  church  of  the  old  or  First  Parish  in  Dedham 
had  withdrawn,  and  established  worship  and  the  ordinances  in 
another  sanctuary.  Did  the  church  property  vest  in  the  reced- 
ing body,  or  in  that  portion  of  the  fellowship  which  remained  in 
connection  with  the  old  parish  ? 

The  church  at  Dedham  had,  with  great  unanimity,  liberalized 
the  terms  of  its  covenant  previous  to  the  close  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, under  Mr.  Haven's  pastorate.  The  late  Dr.  Bates,  his 
successor,  was  regarded  at  his  settlement  as  one  of  the  liberal 
or  moderate  men,  and  was  chosen  as  such  ;  the  majority  of  those 
who  elected  and  were  to  support  him  being  in  sympathy  with 
what,  in  the  then  transition  process  of  theological  opinion,  was 
called  moderate.  In  the  course  of  his  ministry  he  was  supposed 
to  have  grown  more  rigid  in  his  views,  and  he  ceased  to  ex- 
change with  brother  ministers  whom  the  society  had  been 
accustomed  to  see  in  the  pulpit.  When  he  was  dismissed  to 
assume  the  presidency  of  a  college  in  Vermont,  a  strife  grew 
out  of  the  seeds  of  division  which  existed  in  the  parish.  The 
measures  connected  with  the  choice  and  ordination  of  a  new 
pastor  set  the  parish  and  the  church  in  opposition.  The  old 
ecclesiastical  usages  which  marked  the  action  of  our  societies, 
having  been  as  variable  and  unsettled  as  I  have  already  noted, 
were  found  to  have  been  peculiarly  so  in  this  parish.  Usage 
afforded  no  fair  or  final  arbitrament  in  the  emergency.  The 
funded  property,  which  had  accumulated  from  early  times,  with 
many  additions,  was  of  considerable  value.  It  had  been  given 
by  portions  to  the  town,  the  parish,  and  the  church,  those  three 
terms  being  used,  in  fact,  as  synonymes  to  designate  the  com- 
mon purposes  to  be  served  by  these  funds.  They  had  been 
managed  at  one  time  by  the  whole  town,  and  afterwards  by  the 
deacons,  under  the  law  of  1754,  which  made  them  trustees  of 
property  designed  for  religious  and  charitable  uses.  When 
there  had  been  a  vacancy  in  the  same  parish  in  1685,  the  com- 
municants  and    the    non-communicants,   voting    together,   had 


APPENDIX.  423 

invited   Mr.  Bowles  to  become  the  pastor  ;  a  general  meeting 
having  decided  that  "  the  church  and  town  will  act  together  as 
one."     In   an  election  two  years  afterwards  the  parish  took  the 
lead,  and  the  church  followed.    In  the  case  before  us,  the  major- 
ity of  the  church  opposed  the  vote  of  the  parish  for  calling  and 
ordaining  a  liberal  pastor.     After  much  agitation,  the  will  of  the 
parish  having  prevailed,  the  disaffected  party  withdrew  from  the 
old  meeting-house,  and  from  the  ministrations  of  the  new  pastor, 
to  set  up  worship  in  another  place.     A  suit  was  instituted  by 
the  newly-chosen  deacons  for  the  possession  of  the   funds,  to 
which  the  retiring  party  laid  claim,  as  lawfully  in  their  adminis- 
tration.    It  would  seem  as  if  a  primary  point  for  decision  was, 
whether  the  majority  of  the  church-members  had  withdrawn. 
But,  by  the  advice  of  legal  counsel,   the  parish,  as  has   been 
already  said,  conceded  that  a  majority  of  the  church  constituted 
the  opposition  to  its  proceedings.     This  concession  was  intended 
to  secure  a  decision  on  the  first  principles  involved  in  the  case, 
and  being  yielded,  it  of  course  entered  into  the  assumed  facts, 
constituting  the  law  question  to  be  pronounced  upon  by  a  full 
bench,  not  by  a  jury.     It  is  not  admitted,  however,  that  a  major- 
ity of  the  church-members  actually  withdrew  from  connection 
with  the  old  parish.     The  Rev.  Dr.  Lamson,  whose  candor  and 
integrity  will  not  be  disputed  by  any  one  who  knows  him,  and 
whose  knowledge  of  all  the  facts  of  the  case,  from   his  own 
prominent  place  in  them,  his  possession  of  the  papers,  and  his 
intimacy  with  the  parties,  makes  him  our  best  witness,  is  very 
explicit  on  this  point.     It  was  at  the  opening  of  his  ministry  that 
the  litigation  occurred.     The  lapse  of  nearly  forty  years  finds 
him   still    the    much  beloved  and  honored  pastor  of  the  same 
parish.     In  a  note  to  his  Second  Century  Historical  Discourses, 
preached  in  1838,  he  says  :  "  The  majority  of  the  old  members 
did  not,  in  fact,  retire."     "  This  I  believe,  from  a  careful  in- 
spection of  a  very  accurate  list  of  the  original  members,  to  be  a 
fact."     "  Of  one  thing  there  can  be  no  dispute ;  that  is,  that 
after  the  ordination  there  was  a  larger  vote  sanctioning  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  parish  than  was  ever  given  against  them.     I 
make   this   whole    statement   after   a   diligent   examination   of 
authentic  documents,  and  ample   means  of  information,  and  I 
believe  that  every  part  of  it  can  be  fully  substantiated." 


424  APPENDIX. 

The  court,  however,  adjudicated  as  if  the  point  conceded,  viz. 
the  withdrawal  of  a  majority  of  the  old  church-members,  were 
really  the  fact.  Its  decision  was,  that  the  "  Church  associated 
and  worshipping  with  the  First  Parish  is  the  First  Church,"  and 
the  custody  and  improvement  of  the  funds  were  transferred  ac- 
cordingly.*    A  decision  by  first  principles. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  revive  here  the  remembrance  of  the 
bitter  and  unmeasured  abuse  visited  upon  our  highest  judicial 
tribunal  for  this  decision,  which  became  a  precedent  for  other 
cases.  An  Ecclesiastical  Council  in  Groton,  in  1827,  for- 
mally challenged  the  decision.  Nor  is  it  my  province  to  enter 
into  a  legal  argument  in  vindication,  or  in  denunciation,  of  the 
professional  judgment  of  men  whom  with  good  reason  this  com- 
munity regarded  as  most  conscientious  and  wise.  But  as  candor 
has  led  me  to  connect  with  an  admission  of  the  perplexity  of 
two  of  our  church  cases,  an  allowance  that  I  "  do  not  feel  per- 
fectly satisfied  with  the  legal  decisions,"  and  as  my  critic  has 
permitted  himself  to  write  about  "  the  plundering  "  of  churches, 
I  may  add  a  few  words  of  measured  explanation. 

When  the  issue  arose  which  was  sure  to  present  itself  here, 
as  it  had  presented  itself  in  several  of  the  European  Continental 
nations,  and  more  particularly  in  Great  Britain,  in  connection 
with  changes  in  the  popular  religious  belief,  it  was  necessary  to 
settle  a  principle  of  law  touching  funds  vested  for  religious  uses. 
The  form  of  the  question  in  our  Commonwealth  was,  whether 
church  funds  belonged  to  a  selected  body  of  persons  in  a  re- 
ligious society  covenanting  in  a  separate  fellowship  of  their  own, 
and  belonged  to  them  in  such  an  absolute  sense  as  would  admit 
of  their  being  withdrawn  by  these  covenanted  members  if  they 
should  retire  from  the  society  ;  or  whether  such  funds  were  to 
be  for  ever  available  to  a  continuous  fellowship,  or  even  to  new 
and  successive  bodies  of  communicants,  perpetuated  or  arising 
within  the  original  society.  The  legal  decision  ratified  the 
latter  alternative.  The  following  reasons  suggest  themselves  in 
support  of  the  decision. 

A  "  church "   can  subsist  and  perpetuate  itself  only  by  an 

*  The  case  is  reported  in  Massachusetts  Term  Keports,  Vol.  XVI.  pp. 
488-522. 


APPENDIX.  425 

organic  connection  with  a  "  society."  The  society  is  the  soil 
for  the  roots  of  a  Christian  vine,  supplying  the  new  material  to 
repair  waste  by  death.  A  church  not  connected  with  a  society 
would  die  out. 

Again,  it  has  been  found  difficult  in  some  instances  to  settle 
disputed  cases  involving  the  right  of  membership  of  religious 
societies,  when  depending  upon  only  such  tangible  conditions 
as  residence,  taxation,  the  ownership  of  a  pew,  and  occasional 
presence  in  a  place  of  worship.  But  it  would  be  infinitely  more 
difficult  to  dispose  of  cases  involving  the  right  of  church-mem- 
bership, if  large  pecuniary  interests  were  in  question,  and  the  law 
were  invoked  to  review  matters  of  church  discipline,  creed,  and 
covenant.  "  Church  usages  "  have  been  so  various  in  different 
parishes,  that  there  is  no  common  law  for  authoritative  refer- 
ence in  half  the  cases  that  do  or  might  arise.  Some  persons 
may  be  members  of  a  church,  who  are  not  members  of  the 
parish  in  which  it  is  gathered.  Some  persons  disaffected  or  not 
edified  in  the  places  of  their  residence,  may  go  on  the  Lord's 
day  to  participate  in  Christian  ordinances  wherever  they  please. 
Do  such  persons  become  legal  administrators  of  the  old  parish 
church  fund  in  the  place  where  they  may  commune  ?  The 
majority  of  the  church-members,  as  found  among  the  living 
signers  of  the  covenant,  in  one  of  our  old  parishes,  might  decide 
in  church  meeting  to-day  to  emigrate  to  Kansas.  Can  they 
take  with  them  the  funds  given  to  the  church  of  their  present 
parish  ?  Some  church-members  after  marriage,  or  in  pursuit  of 
health  or  business,  have  removed  from  the  State  or  the  town  in 
which  they  had  entered  into  covenant  relations.  They  know 
not  how  long  they  may  stay  abroad,  they  may  expect  to  return 
sooner  or  later,  and  so  they  may  not  take  up  their  church  rela- 
tions ;  or  the  church  to  which  they  belong  may  decline  to  re- 
lease them,  because  unable  to  commend  them  to  the  fellowship 
of  any  other  church  in  their  new  residence.  Shall  these  ab- 
sentees and  wanderers  be  hunted  out  for  the  sake  of  their  votes, 
by  proxy  or  otherwise,  when  contested  questions  are  closely 
tried  in  their  old  fellowship,  and  shall  they  be  allowed  to  present 
themselves  at  any  time  and  claim  and  exercise  the  privilege  ? 
Shall  the  question  as  to  the  choice  of  a  pastor  from  the  Cam- 
36* 


426  APPENDIX. 

bridge  or  the  Andover  schools,  over  one  of  our  old  churches 
and  parishes,  and  the  continuance  of  the  funds  in  its  possession, 
be  left  possibly  contingent  upon  the  answer  to  a  telegraphic 
message  sent  to  three  men  or  women  living  in  Ohio,  whose 
names  are  on  the  church-books  ? 

Again,  some  church-members  have  been  factiously  excom- 
municated to  deprive  them  of  their  votes.  In  other  cases,  as 
many  members  of  a  society  not  in  communion  as  have  already 
joined  the  church,  and  perhaps  a  far  larger  number,  may  strongly 
desire  the  privilege  of  communion,  and  in  the  judgment  of 
charity  may  be  as  worthy  of  it  as  are  any  who  share  it,  but 
may  be  kept  out  by  arbitrary  terms  or  hostile  voters.  Many 
devout  and  faithful  people  have  been  thus  notoriously  deprived 
of  their  Christian  rights,  because  they  exercised  the  same  soul- 
freedom  under  the  profession  of  which  our  churches  were 
planted. 

Once  more.  How  could  a  church  be  identified,  except  by  its 
connection  with  a  local  parish  or  society  ?  Supposing  even  the 
possibility,  it  has  never  yet  been  verified,  but  always  disproved, 
that  a  succession  of  men  and  women  could  be  found  in  a 
town  for  several  centuries  who  could  honestly  profess  to  hold 
precisely  the  same  religious  and  doctrinal  views  held  by  the 
founders  of  their  church.  It  is  well  known,  that  those  founders 
laid  equal  stress  upon  the  measures  of  an  unrelaxed  discipline, 
as  upon  the  integrity  of  an  undiminished  creed.  It  may  be 
fairly  affirmed,  that,  if  the  original  members  of  our  churches 
could  return  to  their  places  in  the  holy  assemblies  of  those  who 
claim  to  be  their  successors  in  doctrinal  purity,  they  would  be 
greatly  scandalized  at  the  utter  disuse  or  the  mere  shadowy 
remnant  of  the  old,  stern  discipline,  which  exacted  confessions 
and  administered  penalties  before  the  whole  congregation.  Ec- 
clesiastical sentences  were  as  rigorous  as  the  civil  sentences 
in  the  early  days  of  this  colony,  and  more  galling  and  hum- 
bling. The  old  church  record-books  contain  something  beside 
the  covenant,  and  the  list  of  those  who  owned  it.  Would  even 
our  most  Orthodox  brethren  consent  to  be  held  to  a  strict  pro- 
cess for  the  identification  of  one  of  their  churches  with  a  church 
of  the  fathers  ?  Surely,  the  money  is  not  the  only  considera- 
tion. 


APPENDIX.  427 

Our  courts  recognized  as  fundamental  law,  that  a  church  was 
a  voluntary  association  of  some  or  all  of  the  members  within  a 
religious  society  ;  and  as  so  far  identified  with  that  society,  pro- 
tected and  sustained  by  the  corporate  rights  of  that  society,  that  it 
extinguished  itself  by  withdrawal,  and  could  exist  and  be  perpet- 
uated only  by  retaining  an  organic  connection  with  it.  Had  our 
courts  fallen  short  of  that  decision,  or  adopted  any  other,  they 
would  have  involved  themselves  in  all  the  perplexities  of  the 
Canon  Law.  They  would  have  been  forced  to  assume  the  func- 
tions of  ecclesiastical  tribunals,  to  adjudicate  on  questions  of 
simony,  bigotry,  heresy,  and  excommunication.  Then,  too, 
acres  of  territory,  and  heaps  of  funded  wealth,  the  lawful  in- 
heritance of  new  generations  unfettered  by  conditions  of  creed, 
would  have  been  pledged  to  obsolete  terms  and  disbelieved  doc- 
trines. The  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  was  saved  by  her 
judiciary  from  the  necessity  of  following  the  lead  of  the  British 
Parliament  in  transferring  all  the  ecclesiastical  property  of  the 
realm  from  the  use  of  "  Orthodoxy  "  to  the  service  of  "  heresy." 

Still  the  case  was  "  perplexing."  Still  one  may  "  not  feel 
perfectly  satisfied,"  that  in  every  instance  the  conditions  of 
Christian  equity  were  realized.  But  do  not  let  us  say  that  the 
honored  and  revered  men  who  have  adorned  the  high  places  of 
justice  in  Massachusetts  were  ever  concerned  in  "  plundering 
churches." 


On  reviewing  what  I  had  written  upon  the  subject  of  the 
Church  cases,  it  occurred  to  me  that,  in  my  desire  to  treat  the 
matter  under  its  general  bearings,  I  might  not  have  done  justice 
to  the  strength  of  the  legal  reasons  on  which  the  decisions  were 
based.  I  therefore  submitted  the  proof-sheet  of  this  portion  of 
my  Appendix  to  a  professional  friend,  with  the  request  that,  tak- 
ing note  of  what  my  critic  had  written  in  such  strong  terms  upon 
this  subject,  he  would  supply  any  deficiency  of  mine  in  the 
proper  treatment  of  its  legal  relations.  I  have  received  from 
him  the  following  remarks  :  — 

"  It  is  true,  as  you  have  stated,  that  in  the  earlier  years  of  our 
colonial  history  the  power  of  choosing  the  minister,  or  teaching 


428  APPENDIX. 

elder,  in  a  parish  or  religious  society,  was  vested  in  the  church ; 
but  so  was  the  election  to  civil  offices.  Church-members  alone 
had  a  right  of  suffrage  in  civil  affairs.  Afterwards  the  church 
and  the  society  had  a  concurrent  vote,  and  the  law  on  the  sub- 
ject was  varied  from  time  to  time. 

"  But  to  avoid  any  collision  or  conflict  of  authority  on  this  sub- 
ject, it  was  expressly  provided  by  the  Constitution  of  1780,  —  the 
fundamental  law,  not  to  be  changed  by  the  Legislature,  —  that 
the  parish,  or  religious  society,  or  town,  or  district,  where  the 
same  corporation  exercised  the  functions  of  a  town  and  religious 
society,  should  have  the  exclusive  right  and  power  of  electing 
the  minister  and  contracting  with  him  for  his  support.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  Constitution  upon  this  subject  is  explicit,  as  follows  : 
4  Provided,  notwithstanding,  that  the  several  towns,  parishes,  pre- 
cincts, and  other  bodies  politic,  or  religious  societies,  shall,  at  all 
times,  have  the  exclusive  right  of  electing  their  public  teachers, 
and  contracting  with  them  for  their  support  and  maintenance.' 
And  when  the  Third  Article  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights,  con- 
taining this  provision,  was  abrogated  by  amendment  in  1833,  this 
provision  securing  to  religious  societies  the  right  of  election  was 
reinstated,  and  is  now  a  part  of  the  Constitution  of  the  Common- 
wealth ;  except  that,  instead  of  the  term  '  public  teachers '  in  the 
first  instrument,  the  more  specific  designation  of '  pastors  and  re- 
ligious teachers '  is  substituted.  This  was  accompanied  with  an- 
other fundamental  principle,  that  all  religious  sects  and  denomi- 
nations shall  be  equally  under  the  protection  of  the  law,  and  no 
subordination  of  any  one  sect  or  denomination  to  another  shall 
be  established  by  law.  These  provisions  constitute  the  legal 
foundations  of  the  religious  institutions  of  the  Commonwealth. 

"  The  religious  society  may  be  a  territorial  or  a  poll  parish, 
or  organized  as  a  religious  society  under  the  statute,  and  may 
be  of  any  denomination.  Such  a  religious  society  is  a  corpora- 
tion and  body  politic,  capable  of  taking  and  holding  property  in 
its  own  right,  for  the  purposes  for  which  it  is  organized,  which 
are,  the  support  and  maintenance  of  public  worship  and  religious 
instruction,  providing  for  all  the  expenses  incident  to  these  du- 
ties, as  building  a  meeting-house,  settling  a  minister,  providing 
for  his  support,  and  the  like.     The  Church  is  a  body  of  individ- 


APPENDIX.  429 

uals  formed  within  a  religious  society  by  covenant,  for  the  cele- 
bration of  Christian  ordinances,  for  mutual  edification  and  dis- 
cipline, and  for  making  charitable  provision  for  its  own  members, 
and  for  all  expenses  incident  to  these  specific  objects.  The 
church  may  be  composed  of  all  or  of  a  part  of  the  members 
of  a  religious  society.  It  may  be  composed  of  males  and  fe- 
males, adults  and  minors  ;  though  by  long-established  usage 
adult  male  members  alone  vote  in  church  affairs. 

"  Now  it  is  manifest  that,  under  the  foregoing  provision  of  the 
Constitution,  the  legal  voters  of  the  parish  alone  have  by  law  the 
power  to  vote  in  the  settlement  of  a  minister,  and  the  church  as 
an  organized  body  can  have  no  negative.  But  each  male  mem- 
ber of  the  church  is  usually,  if  not  necessarily,  a  member  of  the 
religious  society,  and  as  such  has  his  equal  voice  with  all  other 
members  of  the  society.  But  in  fact  and  in  practice,  church- 
members,  being  among  the  most  respected  members  of  the  so- 
ciety, will  ordinarily  have  an  influence,  by  their  counsel  and  their 
character,  much  greater  than  the  proportion  which  they  numer- 
ically bear  to  the  whole  number  of  votes.  And  from  the  respect 
due  to  such  a  body,  as  a  matter  of  courtesy,  they  are  usually 
consulted,  and  in  many  instances  are  requested  to  take  the  lead 
in  giving  a  call  to  a  minister;  and,  if  the  parish  concur,  in  mak- 
ing the  ecclesiastical  arrangements  for  his  ordination,  the  invita- 
tion of  a  council,  and  the  usual  solemnities  attending  such  settle- 
ment. This  customary  deference  to  the  church  is  all  just  and 
proper,  and  a  course  which  every  lover  of  Christian  harmony 
and  order  would  approve.  But  if  such  harmony  cannot  be  main- 
tained, and  the  parties  come  to  a  controversy  requiring  an  ap- 
peal to  the  law,  the  law  must  decide  these  questions  of  right 
according  to  the  express  provision  of  the  Constitution,  and  the 
laws  of  the  land,  without  regard  to  sect  or  denomination. 

"Another  fundamental  principle  lying  at  the  foundation  of 
these  legal  decisions  is  this  :  that  the  church  of  any  religious 
society,  recognized  by  usage,  and  to  some  extent  by  law,  as  an 
aggregate  body  associated  for  highly  useful  and  praiseworthy 
purposes,  whose  usages  and  customs  are  to  be  respected  and 
encouraged,  is  not  a  corporation  or  body  politic  capable  of  tak- 
ing and  holding  property.     No  doubt,  in  the  very  earliest  times 


430  APPENDIX. 

there  was  some  confusion  in  the  minds  of  our  ancestors  upon 
this  subject ;  but  ever  since  1754,  now  more  than  a  century,  the 
distinction  between  church  and  society  has  been  well  known  and 
universally  observed.  The  very  purpose  of  the  statute  of  1754 
was  to  vest  deacons  of  Congregational  churches,  and  the  war- 
dens and  vestry  of  Episcopal  churches,  with  corporate  powers 
to  take  property  for  the  church,  for  the  very  reason  that  the 
church,  as  an  aggregate  body  of  individuals,  not  a  corporation, 
could  not  by  law  take  property,  or  hold  and  transmit  it  in  suc- 
cession. Since  that  time,  church  property  and  parish  property 
have  been  regarded  as  wholly  distinct.  Church  property  holden 
by  deacons  could  not  be  appropriated  by  the  parish  as  of  right, 
nor  could  parish  property  be  used  or  appropriated  by  the  church. 
In  the  Dedham  case  there  might  be  some  doubt  raised  in  the 
mind  of  one  not  attending  carefully  to  this  legal  distinction.  The 
property  originated  in  grants  made  to  the  church  in  form  at  the 
very  early  date  of  1660,  when,  as  I  have  said,  there  was  some 
confusion  of  terms ;  for  though  it  was  given  to  the  First  Church, 
it  was  for  the  support  of  "  a  teaching  elder,"  i.  e.  a  minister, 
which  is  peculiarly  a  parish  purpose.  The  court  decided  in  that 
particular  case,  that,  by  the  particular  grant,  the  legal  estate, 
being  given  to  "  the  church,"  by  force  of  the  statute  of  1754 
vested  in  the  deacons  as  church  property  in  trust  for  the  support 
of  a  minister,  and  so  was,  in  effect,  in  trust  for  the  parish.  But 
the  court  decided  in  that  same  case,  that,  but  for  the  trusts  de- 
clared in  those  grants,  the  parish,  as  such,  would  have  no  claim, 
legal  or  equitable,  to  the  property  granted,  or  the  proceeds  of  the 
sale  of  it. 

"  The  effect  of  that  decision  was,  that  the  legal  estate  vested 
in  the  deacons  as  church  property,  and  that  the  First  Parish,  as 
a  corporation,  had  no  title  to  it.  And  this  is  manifest  from  the 
consideration,  that  the  deacons  of  the  church  maintained  the  ac- 
tion as  the  recognized  legal  owners. 

"  As  to  which  of  the  two  parties  in  that  suit  were  rightfully 
the  deacons  of  the  church  of  the  First  Parish,  that  was  a  distinct 
question.  And  upon  considerations,  and  as  matter  of  law,  the 
court  decided,  that  although  a  majority  of  the  members  of  the 
First  Church  seceded  and  withdrew  from  the  society  after  they 


APPENDIX.  431 

had  given  a  call  to  a  minister,  in  which  the  church  as  a  body- 
did  not  concur  ;  yet  those  of  the  church  who  remained  and  ad- 
hered to  the  First  Parish  constituted  the  church  of  the  First  Par- 
ish, with  the  incidental  right  of  removing  and  choosing  deacons, 
and  the  deacons  whom  they  had  chosen,  in  place  of  those  whom 
they  had  removed,  were  the  deacons  of  the  church  of  the  First 
Parish. 

"  The  principle,  then,  appears  to  be  this :  that  a  church  is 
an  associated  body,  gathered  in  a  religious  society,  for  mutual 
edification  and  discipline,  and  the  celebration  of  the  Christian 
ordinances.  It  is  ascertained  and  identified  as  the  church  of 
the  parish  or  religious  society  in  which  it  is  formed.  The 
church  of  the  First  Parish  of  D.,  for  example,  is  ascertained 
and  identified  by  its  existence  in,  and  connection  with,  that  par- 
ish. If  a  majority  of  the  members  withdraw,  they  have  a  full 
right  to  do  so,  but  they  thereby  cease  to  be  the  church  of  that 
parish.  They  withdraw  as  individuals,  and  not  as  an  organized 
body.  They  may  form  a  religious  society  by  applying  to  a  jus- 
tice of  the  peace,  under  the  statute,  to  call  a  meeting,  and  a 
church  may  be  gathered  in  such  society.  But  it  would  be  a  new 
society,  and  the  church  gathered  in  it  would  not  be  the  church  of 
the  First  Parish  of  D.  They  might  associate  others  with  them- 
selves and  settle  a  minister,  but  this  would  not  make  such  society 
the  church  of  the  First  Parish.  It  follows  as  a  necessary  legal 
consequence,  that  all  church  property,  even  a  service  of  plate 
for  the  communion,  given  to  the  church  of  the  First  Parish  of 
D.,  must  be  and  remain  for  the  church  gathered  in  that  parish, 
and  those  who  may  succeed  them  in  that  parish,  and  it  cannot 
go  to  the  use  of  any  other  church,  or  the  church  of  any  other 
society.  However  desirable  it  may  be  by  all  right-thinking  per- 
sons, that  all  such  controversies  should  be  avoided,  by  an  ami- 
cable adjustment  of  all  such  claims  upon  the  principles  of  the 
most  liberal  equity  and  charity,  and  with  a  just  regard  to  the 
feelings  as  well  as  the  rights  of  all,  yet,  if  parties  will  appeal  to 
the  law  to  decide  a  question  respecting  the  right  of  property, 
even  to  a  service  of  church  plate,  the  law  must  decide  it  upon 
the  same  legal  principles  which  govern  the  acquisition  and  trans- 
mission of  property  in  all  other  cases. 


432  APPENDIX. 

"  There  is  no  case  in  which  it  has  been  decided,  in  this  Com- 
monwealth, that  any  parish  or  religious  "society,  acting  as  a  cor- 
poration charged  with  the  special  duty  of  supporting  and  main- 
taining public  worship,  have  a  right  to  recover  property  of  a 
seceding  church,  or  of  any  church  of  such  parish.  But  the  con- 
troversy has  always  been  between  those  members  of  the  church 
of  a  designated  parish  who  remain  with  that  parish,  and  those 
who  secede,  retire,  or  withdraw  therefrom,  as  to  which  is  the 
real  church  of  said  parish.  It  has  been  a  question  of  identity, 
and  the  decision  has  gone  upon  the  principle,  that,  whatever  other 
rights  or  claims  the  retiring  or  seceding  members,  even  though 
a  majority,  may  have,  they  could  not  be  considered  in  law,  after 
such  secession,  as  the  church  of  that  parish." 


V. 

UNITARIANS   IMPEACHED  FOR   CONCEALMENT. 

My  critic  devotes  the  substance  of  his  second  paper  to  the  re- 
iteration of  the  specific  evidence  on  which  the  Orthodox  party 
charged  some  of  their  former  brethren  with  a  concealment  of 
their  newly  adopted  Unitarian  opinions.  If  the  reader  will  turn 
back  to  page  17,  he  will  note  my  very  emphatic  statement,  that 
any  one  who  should  attempt  to  vindicate  our  first  Unitarians 
from  the  charge  of  concealment,  "  would  undertake  a  needless 
and  futile  task."  I  admitted,  also,  that  there  was  "  a  show  of 
evidence  to  support  the  charge,  though  not  of  a  sort  to  fix  the 
slightest  stain  upon  the  characters  of  those  who  were  the  sub- 
jects of  it."  The  simple  facts  of  the  case  I  considered  to  be  a 
complete  relief  from  all  that  was  censurable  in  such  conceal- 
ment, and  I  remarked,  that  those  who  would  not  admit  in  their 
favor  the  force  of  these  facts  were  not  within  the  reach  of  any 
plea  that  could  be  offered.  I  then  added  this  sentence  :  "  Not 
for  their  vindication,  then,  but  merely  as  a  matter  of  explana- 
tory history,  will  we  briefly  advert  to  these  facts." 


APPENDIX.  433 

It  was  with  some  surprise,  therefore,  that  I  read  the  first  sen- 
tence of  the  comments  of  my  critic,  as  follows :  "  A  consider- 
able part  of  Mr.  Ellis's  first  article  is  taken  up  in  the  attempt  to 
vindicate  the  early  Unitarians  of  Massachusetts  from  the  charge 
of  improperly  concealing  their  peculiar  sentiments."  But  not 
to  lay  stress  upon  this  inaccuracy  in  my  critic,  which,  in  the  old- 
fashioned  style  of  controversy,  would  have  provoked  a  sharp 
reply,  the  facts  of  the  case  still  stand  unquestioned,  and  I  do 
not  find  a  single  line  in  the  comments  before  me  that  recog- 
nizes or  meets  them.  The  critic  quotes  from  a  series  of  Uni- 
tarian witnesses  the  evidences,  as  he  thinks,  of  their  own  com- 
plicity in  the  wrong  of  keeping  back  a  full  and  frank  avowal  of 
their  Unitarianism.  I  admit  freely  the  facts  of  the  case,  so  far 
as  they  are  facts,  and  attach  to  them  the  motives  by  which,  as 
I  suppose,  they  are  reconciled  with  the  full  integrity  and  the 
measure  of  wisdom  possessed  by  good  and  intelligent  men. 
The  reader  will  observe  the  stress  that  is  necessarily  laid  upon 
the  word  Unitarianism,  in  order  to  the  maintenance  of  the  side 
taken  by  my  critic.  The  word,  after  all, — the  word  with  its 
prejudiced  and  perverted  associations,  and  the  bugbear  frights 
once  connected  with  it,  —  explains  what  is  most  dark  about  the 
matter.  Had  some  ministers  and  laymen,  now  known  to  have 
been  what  are  now  called  Unitarians,  stood  up  fifty  years  ago, 
and  announced  themselves  by  that  name,  they  would  have  mis- 
led their  friends  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  that  to  which  they 
deceived  their  opponents  by  disavowing  the  name.  We  have 
had  hundreds  of  the  warmest  and  most  determined  opponents  of 
slavery  among  us  who  would  in  any  company  disavow  the 
charge  of  being  "  Abolitionists."  And  why  ?  Because  the  con- 
ventional use  and  the  associations  of  the  terms  attach  to  it  the 
idea  of  ultraism,  of  extreme  opinions  and  measures  with  which 
they  do  not  sympathize,  and  the  odium  of  which  they  are  un- 
willing to  bear.  Will  it  be  fair,  a  half-century  hence,  to  charge 
upon  such  persons  the  dishonest  concealment  of  abolition  opin- 
ions ?  The  case  of  the  first  Unitarians  was  nearly  a  parallel  one. 
A  few  sentences  found  in  the  early  controversial  writings  of  Dr. 
Channing  will  always  be  sufficient  for  a  lucid  exhibition  of  the 
whole  truth  in  the  case  to  a  candid  reader.  When  the  word 
37 


434  APPENDIX. 

Unitarian  first  came  into  use  here,  its  signification  was  quite  un- 
like   that  which  it  bears  now.     It  was  burdened  with   the  re- 
proaches of  ultraism,  extravagance,  eccentricity,  looseness,  and 
recklessness  in  speculation,  and,  moreover,  it  actually  defined  a 
form  of  belief  about  Christ  and  his  Gospel  which,  from  that  day 
to  this,  has  never  had  the  convictions  or  the  sympathy  of  the 
majority  in  our  fellowship.     When  the  epithet  was  associated 
with  Priestley's  materialism  and  reputed  Jacobinism,  and  with 
the  Rev.  S.  T.  Coleridge's  two  sermons,  "  with  blue  coat  and 
white    waistcoat,"   in  the  Unitarian   chapel  at  Bath,  on  "The 
Corn  Laws,"  and  "  The  Hair-Powder  Tax,"  some  of  the  good 
people  of  Massachusetts  who  well  knew  they  were  neither  Cal- 
vinists  nor  Trinitarians  might  well  object  to  recognizing  them- 
selves as  Unitarians,  and  still  more  to  proclaiming  themselves 
such.     Very  many  even  now   who   accept,   without  assuming, 
the  epithet,  are  willing  to  do  so  only  because  it  has  been  dis- 
charged, in  the  place  of  their  residence  at  least,  of  these  asso- 
ciations.    Perhaps,  too,  some  of  these  persons,  if  removing  to 
other  places,  where  Orthodoxy  has  given  a  false  and  slanderous 
report  of  Unitarianism,  would  feel  justified  in  the  court  of  con- 
science in  repudiating  the  name.     And  here  doubtless  we  have 
a  hint  of  one  of  the   most  effective   reasons  which  influenced 
some  in  disavowing  or  temporizing  with  an  epithet  which  they 
were  solicited  by  their  jealous  opponents  to  accept.     Orthodoxy 
had    wrought   out   a  very   awful    delineation    of  Unitarianism. 
There  was  nothing  too  bad  for  spite  or  bigotry  to  say  of  it.     It 
was    worldly,  licentious,  devilish.     It   did   all    sorts    of  wicked 
things.     It  made  light  of  sin.     It  offered  an  opiate  to  accusing 
consciences.     It  mocked  at  the  Bible.     It  ridiculed  a  change  of 
heart.     It  argued  down  a  future  retribution.     It  favored  "  pro- 
miscuous dancing,"  and  it  "  denied  the  Lord  that  bought  us." 
It  can  easily  be  conceived  that  Christian  men  and  women,  who 
believed  themselves  to  be  as  sincere,  as  earnest,  as  wise,  and 
as  pious  as  their  neighbors  who  so  maligned  them,  might  object 
to  falling  into  ranks  which  had  been  thus  described.     Some  real 
Unitarians  may  have  thought  that  a  prudent  and  gradual  devel- 
opment of  changed  views  which  they  themselves  were  thinking 
and  studying  out,  in  loyalty  to  the  truth,  might  be  wisely  pro- 


APPENDIX.  435 

tected  from  an  ill  name,  till  the  excellence  of  the  views  would 
prove  of  avail  to  redeem  a  good  name  from  unjust  reproach. 
When  the  people  knew  what  Unitarianism  really  and  essentially- 
signified,  and  its  disciples  knew  their  views  under  that  name, 
there  was  no  concealment. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  under  this  charge  of  concealment 
some  Orthodox  controversialists  mean  to  convey  something 
more  than  the  word  signifies  in  any  use  of  it  consistent  with 
honesty.  It  is  in  fact  used  by  such  as  synonymous  with  decep- 
tion. In  this  form  the  charge  refutes  itself.  The  charge,  too, 
in  any  form,  is  carried  too  far  to  be  sustained,  because  it  is  not 
self-consistent.  "  Unitarians  concealed  their  peculiar  senti- 
ments." Does  this  mean  all  their  peculiar  sentiments  ?  Of 
course  not ;  for  then  they  would  have  never  have  been  known, 
or  even  brought  under  suspicion.  They  must  have  divulged 
freely  and  effectively  some  of  their  peculiar  sentiments,  in  order 
to  have  drawn  attention  to  themselves  as  suspicious  persons. 
They  probably  announced  most  plainly  those  of  their  senti- 
ments which  they  regarded  as  most  peculiar,  because  most  sig- 
nificant of  their  dissent  from  popular  views,  and  the  most  antag- 
onistic to  the  traditions  of  Orthodoxy.  These  were  not  the  jot 
and  tittle  matters  of  verbal  criticism  or  doctrinal  logomachy, 
but  the  weighty  principles  of  a  rational  and  intelligent  faith. 
There  are  some  peculiar  sentiments  advanced  in  the  writings  of 
noble  Jonathan  Mayhew.  Yet  there  is  not  in  them  a  single  line 
or  sentence  of  dogmatic  Unitarianism.  Did  he  practise  con- 
cealment ? 

There  is  a  paragraph  of  my  critic's  paper  on  this  subject 
which  demands  a  particular  notice. 

"  We  find  another  admission  in  these  pages,  which  contains 
more  of  truth,  possibly,  than  the  author  was  aware  of  when  he 
wrote  it.  4  It  is  a  fact,'  he  says,  '  familiar  to  all  Christian  schol- 
ars, that  Unitarianism  has  lain  latent  in  all  ages  of  the  Church. 
There  have  always  been  intimations  of  its  presence,  and  of  its 
secret  workings.  It  has  cropped  out  here  and  there  always.' 
(p.  30.)  The  testimony  here  given  is  true  so  far  as  this  :  Uni- 
tarianism in  the  Church  has  always  been  latent,  before  it  has 
been  patent.  It  has  worked  in  secret,  before  it  has  ventured  to 
appear  openly.     Thus  Irenseus  describes  the  Unitarians  of  his 


436  APPENDIX. 

day,  as  i  using  alluring  discourses'  in  public,  because  of  the 
common  Christians';  as  'pretending  to  preach  like  the  Ortho- 
dox ' ;  and  as  '  complaining  that,  though  their  doctrine  be  the 
same  as  ours,  we  abstain  from  their  communion,  and  call  them 
heretics.'  But  he  adds :  '  When  they  have  seduced  any  from 
the  faith,  and  made  them  willing  to  comply  with  them,  then  they 
begin  to  open  their  mysteries.'  " 

Availing  himself  of  a  double  meaning  in  the  word  latent,  my 
critic  —  shall  I  say  unfairly,  or  sarcastically  ?  —  suggests  that  I 
have  admitted  more  of  truth  than  I  was  perhaps  aware  of.  If 
he  had  allowed  me  to  use  the  word  latent  as  I  did  use  it,  his 
own  remark  would  have  lost  its  point,  and  he  would  have  saved 
his  space  for  an  answer  to  my  assertion.  Could  he,  however, 
deny,  that  in  every  age  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  in  every 
place,  when  and  where  Orthodox  views  may  have  been  popularly 
or  prevailingly  received,  some  of  the  most  intelligent  and  sin- 
cere and  devout  persons  have  always  held  Unitarian  views,  or 
been  the  subjects  of  Unitarian  tendencies"?  If  my  critic  be  in- 
deed a  Professor  in  a  New  England  Theological  School,  hfs 
reading,  if  not  his  charity,  would  prevent  his  venturing  on  such 
a  denial.  For  he  would  only  subject  himself  by  the  denial  to 
account  for  the  fact,  that  Unitarianism  had  always  manifested 
itself  under  favorable  circumstances  among  the  born  and  edu- 
cated and  honored  disciples  of  Orthodoxy.  What  is  so  ready 
to  appear  must  have  had  a  previous  latent  existence.  Nor  does 
it  consist  with  what  we  know  by  many  interesting  disclosures  of 
the  slow  and  hesitating  processes  of  honest  minds  in  working 
their  way  from  error  to  truth,  to  describe  the  slowness  and  se- 
crecy of  the  method  as  a  sneaking  or  artful  fear  or  policy. 

I  am  amazed,  however,  to  find  a  New  England  Theological 
Professor  committing  himself  to  such  a  scholarly  injustice,  to 
say  no  worse  of  it,  than  appears  in  the  quotation  at  the  close  of 
the  paragraph  above.  I  excuse  what  is  excusable  in  the  wrong, 
by  referring  it  to  a  cause  which  has  often  violated  truth  and 
complicated  controversy,  —  the  taking  quotations  at  second  hand. 
My  critic  credits  his  pretended  extract  from  Irenseus  to  Dr.  Mil- 
ler's Letters  on  Unitarianism.  If  my  critic  had  taken  pains  to 
verify  the  quotation,  he  would  have  crossed  out  his  own  indorse- 
ment.    What  dreadful  creatures   these  Unitarians  of  the  time 


APPENDIX.  437 

of  Irenaeus  must  have  been,  of  whom  such  hard  words  could  be 
used  !  "  Using  alluring  discourses,"  "  pretending  to  preach  like 
the  Orthodox,"  "  seducing"  some  from  the  faith,  and  then  open- 
ing "  their  mysteries  "  !  One  would  suppose  the  description  an- 
swered to  a  sort  of  Mormons.  And  in  fact  it  does  apply  to  per- 
sons with  whom  Unitarians  are  no  more  concerned  than  they 
are  with  Mormons.  Nor  does  Irenoeus  speak  of  Unitarians  as 
such,  nor  on  a  matter  involving  the  views  of  Unitarians.  Neither 
does  he  use  half  of  the  hard  words  which  Dr.  Miller  ascribes  to 
him.  Dr.  Miller's  professed  quotation  from  Irenceus  is  one  of 
those  gross  outrages  for  so  many  of  which  polemics  have  been 
made  odious.  Any  one  who  will  turn  to  the  fifteenth  chapter 
of  the  third  book  of  Irenoeus  "  Contra  Hayeses,"  may  see  what 
this  pretended  account  of  certain  "  Unitarians  of  his  day  "  really 
is.  He  is  dealing  with  a  mixed  mess  of  Ebionites,  Gnostics, 
and  Valentinians.  These,  he  says,  having  publicly  won  dis- 
ciples, "his  separatim  inenarrahile  Plenitudinis  sua  enarrant 
mysterium."  Some  very  excellent  Unitarianism  might  be  quoted 
from  Irenaeus  himself. 

The  historical  list  of  the  concealments  charged  upon  these  al- 
ways latent  Unitarians  closes  thus  :  — 

"  For  some  reason,  this  policy  of  concealment  seems  to  have 
been  common  among  Unitarians  in  all  ages.  They  have  worked 
in  secret  (no  doubt  with  the  best  intentions)  before  they  have 
ventured  to  appear  in  public.  And  not  only  so,  the  doctrine 
has  perhaps  always  been  most  successfully  propagated  in  secret. 
It  has  made  the  most  progress,  not  when  standing  openly  upon 
its  own  foundations,  but  when  silently  mingling  with  other  sects, 
and  secretly  diffusing  itself  among  them.  So  it  has  been  in 
other  times  and  countries.  So,  in  the  judgment  of  Mr.  Ellis,  — 
and  in  this  judgment  we  entirely  coincide,  —  it  has  been  here. 
'  We  seemed  to  begin  to  decline  the  moment  we  began  to  try  to 
strengthen  ourselves.  The  Unitarian  sect  has  hindered  the 
progress  of  Unitarianism.'  —  p.  45." 

It  is  even  so.  Popular  Orthodoxy  has  always  been  very  ef- 
fective in  repressing  the  utterance  of  Unitarian  convictions, 
where  they  have  been  entertained  by  comparatively  few  per- 
sons, and  the  odium  of  heresy  is  heavy  and  stringent.  The  rule 
applies  equally  to  the  repression  of  Protestant  opinions  in  Ro- 
man Catholic  countries.  Through  force  of  this  rule,  thousands 
37* 


438  APPENDIX. 

of  Unitarians  in  Orthodox  communities  and  societies  think  their 
own  thoughts,  say  their  own  prayers,  meditate  religious  truths 
by  themselves,  and  hold  their  tongues,  as  do  thousands  of  Prot- 
estants in  Roman  Catholic  countries. 


VI. 

GENEALOGY   AND  INFLUENCE   OF   UNITARIANISM  IN 
MASSACHUSETTS. 

The  third  of  the  series  of  critical  papers  on  which  I  am  com- 
menting challenges  some  of  the  views  I  have  incidentally 
expressed  about  the  successive  modifications  of  religious  opin- 
ion, which  finally  resulted  in  Unitarianism  in  this  region,  and 
about  the  reflex  influence  of  Unitarianism  upon  the  Orthodoxy 
which  has  been  in  antagonism  with  it.  The  writer  objects  to  a 
statement  of  mine  on  page  19,  part  of  which  only  he  quotes, 
that,  "  for  a  whole  century  before  the  full  development  of  Uni- 
tarianism, there  had  been  a  large  modification,  a  softening  and 
toning  down  of  the  old  theology,  an  undefined  but  recognized 
tempering  of  the  creed."  The  remainder  of  my  sentence  is, 
"  a  relaxing  of  the  strain  upon  faith,  and  a  compliant  acqui- 
escence in  that  state  of  things."     To  this  it  is  replied  :  — 

"  We  think  •  a  whole  century '  throws  the  date  of  these  modi- 
fications too  far  back.  It  was,  however,  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury. And  whether  the  modifications  spoken  of  were  '  a  toning 
down,'  or  a  toning  up,  of  the  old  theology,  we  will  not  now  say. 
Most  people  would  think  they  were  the  latter.  They  com- 
menced with  President  Edwards,  and  were  followed  up  by  his 
pupils  and  admirers,  Bellamy,  Hopkins,  the  younger  Edwards, 
West  of  Stockbridge,  Emmons,  &c.  In  distinction  from  the 
old  theology,  they  were  sometimes  called  *  the  New  Divinity,' 
and  sometimes  '  Hopkinsianism.'  As  they  changed  none  of  the 
facts  or  substantial  doctrines  of  the  old  theology,  but  merely 
modified  some  of  them,  i.  e.  stated  and  explained  them  in  a 
somewhat  different  way,  they  are  properly  called  modifications. 
And  as  the  authors  of  them  renounced  not  one  of  the  five  points 
of  Calvinism,  they  considered  themselves  consistent  Calvinists  ; 


APPENDIX.  439 

though  they  did  not  adopt  all  the  explanations  of  Calvin,  or  of 
the  earlier  settlers  of  New  England. 

"  While  these  changes  were  going  on  in  one  direction,  a  por- 
tion of  the  clergy,  the  most  remote  from  the  Edwardeans,  were 
sliding  ofF  into  what  was  called  *  Moderate  Calvinism,'  or  '  Ar- 
minianism.'  Still,  there  was  no  marked  division  or  classification 
among  our  ministers,  until  near  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary 
war.  At  that  time,  there  came  to  be  a  threefold  division  among 
them,  pretty  clearly  marked,  which  continued  for  the  next  thirty 
years,  viz.  the  Calvinists,  the  Hopkinsians,  and  the  Arminians. 

"  Among  the  two  first  of  these  classes  there  never  was  any 
concealment  of  their  peculiar  opinions.  The  Calvinists,  being 
strictly  what  the  first  settlers  were,  had  nothing  to  conceal,  and 
no  motive  for  concealment.  The  Hopkinsians,  so  far  from  con- 
cealing their  peculiarities,  were  rather  disposed  to  make  them 
prominent.  They  believed  them  to  be  improvements  upon  the 
old  Calvinism  of  the  country,  —  a -carrying  of  it  out  in  greater 
consistency,  —  and  they  were  inclined  to  make  the  most  of  them. 
The  concealment  at  this  period  was  confined  to  the  so-called 
Arminians.  This  was  the  body  which  came  out  at  length  Uni- 
tarians ;  and  without  doubt,  many  of  them  were  concealed  Uni- 
tarians long  before  they  ventured  to  declare  themselves.  It  was 
among  these  that  the  concealment  spoken  of  in  my  last  num- 
ber wholly  existed.  Nominally  Arminians,  —  a  name  which,  as 
Mr.  Ellis  says,  has  been  made  to  signify  almost  anything,  — 
they  were  really,  and  must  have  known  themselves  to  be, 
Arians,  Unitarians,  disbelievers  in  the  .proper  divinity  of  Christ." 

I  cannot  admit  that  a  whole  century  does  throw  the  date  of 
these  modifications  too  far  back.  The  most  cogent  evidence 
that  could  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  case  has  passed  carefully 
under  my  notice,  in  reading  the  writings  of  some  prominent 
ministers  and  laymen  of  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  and  in  com- 
paring them  with  j,hose  of  the  first  generation  on  these  shores. 
If  the  occasion  calls  for  it,  I  will  undertake  to  gather  from  writ- 
ings of  the  date  defined  religious  phraseology  and  expressions 
of  religious  opinions  which  stanch  and  unswerving  Calvinists 
never  would  have  put  forth.  Though  it  is  only  about  a  hundred 
yeai's  since  Mr.  Rogers  of  Leominster  was  dealt  with  as  a  Uni. 
tarian  heretic,  we  may  well  understand  that  there  must  have 
been  considerable  of  a  compliant  acquiescence  in  a  previous 
gradual  modification  of  doctrinal  opinion  to  have  enabled  him  to 
continue   in   the   ministry.     The  dread  of  stirring   up   a  strife 


440  APPENDIX. 

kept  back  in  many  cases  the  avowal  of  much  of  the  mental 
dissent  from  the  doctrines  of  the  Catechism ;  but  some  were  too 
frank  and  bold  to  hide  all  the  proofs  of  their  deliverance  from 
Genevan  bonds. 

Whether,  as  my  critic  pleasantly  suggests,  the  phrase  "  toning 
up,1'  or  "  toning  down,"  is  the  more  applicable  to  the  modifi- 
cations now  in  view,  depends  upon  the  sort  of  modifications  to 
which  he  has  reference.  I  was  writing  of  one  class  of  such 
modifications ;  he  of  another  class.  I  do  not  trace  the  gene- 
alogy of  Unitarianism  through  the  opinions  of  Edwards,  Bella- 
my, and  Hopkins.  Unitarians  attach  very  little  importance  to 
what  is  peculiar  in  the  New  School  of  a  century  or  less  ago. 
We  take  the  happy  statement  of  my  critic  as  expressing  about 
the  fair  truth  touching  these  divines,  that  "  they  changed  none 
of  the  facts  or  substantial  doctrines  of  the  old  theology,  but 
merely  modified  some  of  them."  "  They  did  not  adopt  all  the 
explanations  of  Calvin."  No.  They  had  grace  given  to  them 
to  realize  that  Calvinism  needed  some  tinkering.  Their  suc- 
cessors of  the  New  School  have  not  accepted  all  their  explana- 
tions of  the  explanations  of  Calvinism.  I  have  therefore  re- 
ferred all  along  to  the  speculations  and  modifications  introduced 
by  these  New  School  divines,  as  tokens  only  of  a  restlessness 
under  the  obvious  meaning  of  formulas  which  they  professed  to 
receive.  A  man  who  apologizes  for  Calvinism,  or  trims  or  re- 
duces its  sharp  definitions,  or  tries  to  make  it  less  revolting  to  a 
pious  and  loving  heart,  is  to  us  a  witness  against  it.  We  date 
the  first  beginnings  of  Liberal  Christianity  here  from  the  time 
when  professedly  Orthodox  ministers  began  in  their  shame-faced- 
ness  to  apologize  for  Calvinism.  They  felt  Jhat  it  needed  an 
apology,  and  this  was  their  first  disloyalty  to  it.  The  true  old 
Puritan  divines  would  have  been  roasted  before  making  that  con- 
fession. 

Unitarianism  draws  its  direct  lineage,  as  my  critic  affirms, 
and  as  I  had  expressly  said,  through  Arminianism  ;  though  prob- 
ably there  were  hundreds  of  Unitarians  who  could  not  have 
defined  Arminianism,  any  more  than  they  could  have  talked 
Chinese.  Now  there  is  not  the  least  need  of  all  this  pains- 
taking exactness  in  drawing  the  genealogy  of  heresy.     My  sole 


APPENDIX.  441 

point  in  the  part  of  my  statement  quoted  was,  and  is,  merely 
to  remind  my  readers  that  the  responsibility  of  a  change  of 
sentiment  from  old-fashioned,  real  Calvinism  to  Unitarianism, 
does  not  rest  upon  the  Christian  men  and  women  of  any  one 
generation.  The  influences  which  are  still  modifying  the  opin- 
ions of  those  reputed  Orthodox,  and  which  have  made  thousands 
of  them  un-Calvinistic,  began  to  manifest  themselves  here  more 
than  a  century  and  a  half  ago. 

There  were,  however,  single  cases,  many  of  them  of  men 
and  women  of  independent  and  earnest  minds,  who  made  the 
whole  transition  from  Calvinism  to  Unitarianism.  We  find 
many  such  around  us  now.  Every  Unitarian  minister  knows  of 
persons  in  his  own  congregation  and  church  who  are  able  to 
relate  with  a  fervent  gratitude  the  history  of  their  deep  religious 
experience  in  passing  from  the  creed  of  the  Genevan  bigot  to 
the  glorious  Gospel  faith  of  Christ. 

It  is  to  the  aforesaid  Arminians  that  my  critic  says  the  guilt 
of  concealing  their  change  of  opinions  is  to  be  imputed.  "  Many 
of  them  were  concealed  Unitarians  long  before  they  ventured  to 
declare  themselves."  From  the  turns  of  expression,  the  epithets 
and  phrases  used  in  describing  these  persons,  one  might  suppose 
that  my  critic  regarded  them  as  a  crew  of  dark,  malignant,  and 
cunning  conspirators  against  God  and  truth,  instead  of  a  com- 
pany of  his  own  brother  Christians,  erring,  imperfect,  and  frail 
like  himself,  but  still  realizing,  perhaps  as  profoundly  as  he  does, 
their  responsibility  to  God  and  Christ,  and  seeking  to  know,  be- 
lieve, and  obey  the  truth  in  the  deepest  sincerity  of  their  souls. 
I  know  that  my  critic  would  not  use  these  abusive  terms  of  lan- 
guage of  a  living  friend.  Why,  then,  should  he  use  them  of 
the  dead  ? 

There  are  two  or  three  points  which  require  brief  remark  in 
the  three  following  paragraphs  :  — 

"  As  the  real  character  of  these  men  became  more  apparent, 
and  the  issue  to  which  things  were  coming  could  no  longer  be 
concealed,  a  disposition  was  manifested  by  the  Hopkinsians  and 
Calvinists  to  drop  their  divisions  and  come  together  ;  and,  with- 
out any  of  the  formalities  of  a  compromise  or  union,  a  real  and 
general  union  was  effected,  embracing  the  great  body  (though 
not  all)  of  the  two  classes  above  indicated.     Among  the  visible 


442  APPENDIX. 

results  of  this  union  was  the  founding  of  the  Andover  Theo- 
logical Seminary  by  Hopkinsians  and  Calvinists,  and  the  uniting 
of  the  Calvinistic  Panoplist  with  the  old  Massachusetts  Mission- 
ary Magazine.  And  here  we  have  the  origin  of  what  has  since 
been  called  *  The  New  England  Theology,'  or  at  least  of  this 
name  for  it,  —  a  modification  of  old  Calvinism,  and  yet  not  high 
Hopkinsianism,  as  this  has  been  held  by  some  of  its  more  re- 
cent advocates. 

"  I  make  this  statement  for  a  twofold  purpose  ;  first,  to  show 
where  the  concealment  of  Unitarianism  began  ;  not,  as  Mr. 
Ellis  thinks,  in  a  i  section  of  the  Orthodox  party,'  but  among  a 
class  of  men  who  chose  to  be  called  Arminians,  while  they 
really  were  (or  many  of  them  were)  concealed  Unitarians,  and 
came  out  as  Unitarians  when  the  mask  was  torn  off.  And, 
secondly,  to  show  the  inaccuracy  of  another  statement  in  the 
articles  before  us,  that  'it  was  Calvinism,  —  the  real  concrete 
system  of  the  Genevan  Reformer,  —  and  not  the  vague  and  un- 
defined abstraction  entitled  Orthodoxy,  which  our  predecessors 
assailed.'  —  p.  4. 

"  Who  does  Mr.  Ellis  mean  by  '  our  predecessors  '  ?  Does 
he  mean  Dr.  Channing,  and  Dr.  Ware,  and  Professor  Norton, 
and  the  early  editors  of  the  Christian  Examiner  ?  But  Dr. 
Worcester,  the  opponent  of  Channing,  was  ever  known  as  a 
New  England  theologian,  and  not  an  Old  School  Calvinist.  And 
Dr.  Woods,  at  the  time  of  his  appointment  at  Andover,  was  re- 
garded as  the  special  representative  of  the  Hopkinsian  interest 
in  that  union  Theological  Seminary,  as  Dr.  Pearson  was  of  the 
Calvinistic  interest.  And  certainly  Professor  Stuart  and  Dr. 
Beecher,  the  early  assailants  of  Unitarianism,  were  never  re- 
garded as  Calvinists  of c  the  concrete  Genevan  stamp.'  In  short, 
as  I  have  said  before,  the  Unitarian  controversy,  divested  of  all 
disguises,  did  not  commence  till  the  spring  of  1815  ;  and  those 
who  then,  and  more  recently,  stood  forth  as  the  champions  of 
Orthodoxy,  were  not  Old  School  Calvinists,  but  those  who  had 
imbibed  the  Edwardean  or  New  England  modifications." 

As  to  the  truce  between  Hopkinsianism  and  Calvinism,  which 
was  brought  about  by  the  opening  of  the  real  Unitarian  contro- 
versy, it  was  a  matter  of  policy.  All  politic  schemes  are  sooner 
or  later  followed  by  a  catastrophe.  Nor  will  Andover  fail  in 
some  way  to  illustrate  old  experience  on  that  fact  with  a  new 
token. 

I  still  insist  that  a  section  of  the  Orthodox  party,  not,  how- 
ever, of  the  Calvinistic  portion  of  it,  brought  in  the  heresy  which 
developed  into  Unitarianism.     To  say  that  the  direct  transition 


APPEXDIX.  443 

was  made  by  Arminians,  is  no  sufficient  answer  to  my  statement, 
any  more  than  it  would  be  to  object  to  the  statement,  that  men 
are  grown-up  children,  by  the  critical  suggestion,  that  it  is  not 
children,  but  boys,  that  make  men.  But  there  were  downright 
Calvinists  who  became  Unitarians,  without  stopping  for  a  week 
in  the  stage  of  Arminianism,  or  knowing  that  there  was  such  a 
system  of  modified  Orthodoxy. 

My  critic  fails  entirely  to  make  me  see  the  alleged  inaccuracy 
of  my  statement,  that  it  was  the  real,  concrete  system  of  Cal- 
vinism which  our  predecessors  assailed.  Those  predecessors 
are  rightly  apprehended  and  named  by  him.  And  what  was  the 
whole  strain  and  burden  of  their  professed  intentions  ?  What 
did  they  say  over  and  over  again,  with  wearying  reiteration,  that 
they  were  assailing  ?  It  was  simply  Calvinism.  It  was  not  the 
New  Divinity.  It  was  not  the  system  which  might  be  lying  in 
the  brains  or  the  heart  of  Drs.  Woods,  Beecher,  and  Worcester, 
or  Professor  Stuart.  Indeed,  one  of  the  bitterest  aggravations 
of  the  controversy  was  found  by  Unitarians  in  the  perpetual 
misrepresentation  made  of  their  most  positive  and  earnest  pro- 
fession, that  they  were  arguing  against  and  rejecting  Calvinism. 
They  took  the  Calvinistic  formulas  and  standards.  These  they 
quoted  honestly.  They  defined  what  they  regarded  as  the  fair 
meaning  of  these  formulas,  the  meaning  conveyed  through  them 
to  their  own  minds,  the  meaning'  which  was  to  them  so  obvi- 
ously unscriptural  and  untrue  as  to  make  them  earnest  oppo- 
nents of  Calvinism.  They  drew  fair  inferences  from  the  doc- 
trines of  these  formulas.  They  introduced  and  closed  their 
discussions  with  repeated  and  tiresome  references  to  standards. 
They  found  the  Orthodox  with  whom  they  were  in  controversy 
claiming  the  reverent,  filial  praise  of  allegiance  to  the  faith  of 
the  fathers  of  New  England,  —  the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation, 
—  the  doctrines  of  the  Westminster  Catechism,  and  of  the  New 
England  Confession  of  Faith.  What  did  it  all  mean  ?  Did  it 
mean  that  all  these  standards  should  be  taken  under  the  reduced 
or  subdued  interpretation  which  they  might  have  in  the  minds 
of  some  gentlemen  of  Andover,  who  had  not  then,  and,  we  may 
add,  who  have  not  yet,  ventured  to  put  into  print  citable  evi- 
dence of  the  precise  degree  to  which  they  have  impaired  the 


444  APPENDIX. 

integrity  of  Calvinism  ?  Our  predecessors  undertook  to  give 
reasons  for  rejecting  Calvinism.  They  were  competent  to  say 
what  Calvinism  taught.  They  quoted  these  teachings.  And 
what  was  the  consequence  ?  They  were  accused  of  slandering 
living  men,  —  of  caricaturing  the  faith  of  living  men;  they 
were  even  accused  of  misrepresenting  Calvinism,  till  Professor 
Norton,  by  his  elaborate  quotations,  made  Calvinism  recognize 
its  own  features.  I  have  not  said  anywhere,  as  my  critic  implies 
that  I  have,  that  those  who  "  stood  forth  as  the  champions  of 
Orthodoxy  were  Old  School  Calvinists."  Some  of  them  were, 
and  some  of  them  were  not.  If  the  Orthodox  did  not  defend 
Calvinism,  then  they  did  not  defend  what  Unitarians  were  as- 
sailing. Unitarians  understood  their  opponents  as  claiming  the 
credit  of  being  lineal  and  loyal  descendants  in  the  faith  of  the 
New  England  fathers,  who  fastened  upon  our  churches  and  nur- 
series the  doctrines  of  the  Assembly's  Catechism.  It  is  those 
doctrines  that  Unitarians  assail.  How  far  professedly  Orthodox 
men  may  have  elaborated  a  system  based  upon  an  appreciable 
modification  of  those  doctrines,  is  a  question  of  our  own  times, 
and  to  that  issue  two  schools  among  the  Orthodox  are  the  par- 
ties. That,  however,  was  not  the  question  fifty,  or  forty,  years 
ago.  The  Unitarians  believed,  and  their  successors  believe 
still  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  disingenuous,  uncandid,  and 
provoking  argument  and  feeling  displayed  by  the  Orthodox,  in 
trying  in  all  sorts  of  ways  to  evade  the  blows  dealt  against 
Calvinism,  by  charging  upon  Unitarians  a  misrepresentation  of 
the  system.  Of  course  it  became  very  evident,  as  the  contro- 
versy advanced,  that  many  of  the  champions  of  Orthodoxy  had 
no  idea  of  assuming  the  defence  of  pure  Calvinism.  If  they 
had  candidly  announced  this  at  the  outset,  and  had  proclaimed 
how  much  of  the  system  they  intended  to  defend,  and  under 
what  abatements  and  modifications  they  would  alone  be  held 
responsible  for  it,  they  would  have  relieved  the  controversy  of  a 
world  of  acrimony.  But  they  did  assume  the  defence  of  Calvin- 
ism and  the  defence  of  those  specific  doctrines  of  it  which  were 
sharply  defined  in  the  formulas.  Unitarians  took  them  at  their 
word,  as  holding  the  pure  old  dogmas  of  Geneva.  How  were 
Unitarians  to  know  anything  about  the  precise  amount  and  shap- 


APPENDIX.  445 

I 

ings  of  un-Calvinistic  theology,  as  held  by  the  men  whom  my 
critic  names  ?  It  is  only  with  great  difficulty,  and  with  but  lim- 
ited satisfaction,  that  any  one  can  obtain,  even  at  this  day,  the 
knowledge  he  may  crave  about  the  real  creed  taught  at  Andover. 
.  Having  corrected  my  supposed  inaccuracy  on  this  point,  my 
critic  pa'sses  to  deal  with  another,  as  follows  :  — 

"  And  this  leads  to  another  correction  in  the  statements  of  the 
article  before  us.  Mr.  Ellis  supposes  that  the  modifications  of 
old  Calvinism,  which  now  are,  and  long  have  been,  current  in 
New  England,  are  to  be  ascribed  to  the  Unitarian  Controversy  ; 
that  the  Orthodox  party,  unable  to  defend  Calvinism,  as  it  was, 
against  the  assaults  of  Unitarianism,  have  gradually  modified 
their  system,  softened  it,  '  toned  it  down,1  till  it  has  come  to  be 
a  more  plausible  and  defensible  theory.  ■  The  Unitarian  may- 
say,  that  the  old  Orthodoxy  has  been  extirpated,  as  the  modern 
shape  and  temper  of  it  are  greatly  unlike  the  old  Calvinism  that 
we  assailed,  when  it  was  nominally  believed  and  theoretically 
defended.'  *  Unitarianism  has  had  an  immeasurable  effect  upon 
Orthodoxy  in  this  one  direction.  Orthodox  preaching  is,  in 
some  quarters,  so  qualified  in  its  general  character,  that,  if  it 
sounds  to  the  ear  as  its  printed  specimens  utter  themselves  to  our 
hearts  and  minds,  we  should  be  quite  content  to  listen  to  it.'  — 
pp.  7,41." 

The  issue  opened  in  this  paragraph  may  be  said  to  be  so  entire- 
ly dependent  upon  mere  opinion  and  judgment  about  a  supposed 
matter  of  fact,  as  not  to  be  profitably  debatable.  My  critic  says 
that  he  is  "  sorry  to  remove  or  disturb  so  flattering  an  unction  as 
this,  or  to  spoil  such  a  pleasing  dream It  is  a  pity,  certain- 
ly, to  disturb  it ;  but  it  cannot  be  helped.     It  is  all  a  dream. 

There  is  no  foundation  for  it  in  truth We  repeat,  then,  our 

firm  conviction,  that  the  influence  of  the  Unitarian  Controversy, 
in  modifying  and  softening  the  Orthodoxy  of  New  England,  has 
been  inconceivably  small.  It  is  an  infinitesimal,  which  no  theo- 
logical calculus  can  reach  or  compute." 

Now,  I  might  quote  many  highly  approved  Orthodox  testi- 
monies to  the  fact,  that  the  influence  of  Unitarianism  in  New 
England  has  impaired  the  integrity  of  Orthodoxy  here,  and  sen- 
sibly reduced  the  vigor  and  pungency  of  Orthodox  preaching. 
But  these  testimonies,  again,  would  express  only  opinions  and 
judgments,  though,  as  coming  from  my  critic's  own  fellowship, 
38 


446  APPENDIX. 

« 

they  should  have  weight  with  him.  It  will  hardly  do,  however, 
to  tell  a  Unitarian,  who,  by  intimate  friendships  with  Orthodox 
persons,  and  by  a  perusal  of  their  writings,  has  an  opportunity 
of  comparing  their  views,  and  their  tone,  sentiments,  and  feelings, 
with  those  which  characterized  the  old-fashioned  Orthodoxy,  that 
Unitarian  culture  and  liberality,  Unitarian  scholarship  a"nd  phi- 
losophy, have  not  had  a  calculable  effect  on  Orthodoxy.  Boston 
and  its  neighborhood  are  the  last  places  on  the  earth  in  which  to 
proclaim  that  notion.  Those  who  can  actually  see  and  feel  how 
Unitarianism  finds  the  greatest  obstacle  to  its  denominational 
extension  to  lie  in  the  wholly  unobjectionable  character  of  very 
much  of  the  present  Orthodox  preaching,  will  be  very  slow  to 
indorse  the  averment  of  my  critic.  He  insists  that  Unitarianism 
has  brought  about  no  additional  modification  of  Calvinism,  be- 
yond what  was  current  forty  years  ago.  "  There  has  been  no 
change  among  the  great  body  of  our  ministers  in  this  respect. 
Or  if  any  considerable  change  is  perceptible,  we  think  it  has 
been  in  the  other  direction.  Probably  a  larger  proportion  of  our 
ministers  may  adopt  the  old  Calvinistic  statements  and  explana- 
tions now,  than  would  have  been  willing  to  do  so  in  the  early  part 
of  the  present  century."  I  have  copied  these  sentences  of  my 
critic,  with  the  courteous  intent  of  allowing  him  to  say  positively 
what  as  positively  with  all  frankness  I  contradict.  There  has 
been  a  change  in  the  tone  and  in  the  advocacy  of  Orthodoxy. 
There  is  an  essential  change  in  the  substance  and  character  of 
the  prevailing  Orthodoxy.  Orthodox  congregations  in  intelligent 
communities  would  not  listen  now  to  what  were  called  the  old 
"  blue  light  "  doctrines  and  preaching.  My  critic  suggests  that 
Dr.  Edward  Beecher  be  asked  whether  Unitarianism  has  had 
any  effect  on  Orthodoxy.  Unfortunately  for  him,  that  vigorous 
heretic  has  written  a  book  expressly  to  treat  of  a  method  for  vin- 
dicating Orthodoxy  from  the  reproach  which  Unitarianism  has 
fairly  fixed  upon  it,  and  compelled  it  to  face  ;  namely,  the  re- 
proach of  being  irreconcilable  with  principles  of  rectitude  and 
honor  in  the  Divine  government. 


APPENDIX.  447 

VII. 

THE  ORTHODOX  DOCTRINE  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 

The  fourth  of  the  series  of  newspaper  articles  now  under 
review  discusses  a  part  of  the  contents  of  the  second  of  the  pre- 
ceding Essays.  That  Essay,  on  the  controversy  upon  the  Nature 
and  State  of  Man,  was  one  which,  in  justice  to  my  subject,  I 
could  not  have  written  without  reflecting  in  terms  of  severity 
upon  the  disingenuousness  and  evasiveness  with  which  some  of 
the  Orthodox  party  shirked  —  that  is  the  proper  word,  though  a 
vulgar  one  —  shirked  the  fairly  expressed  terms  and  the  fairly 
drawn  inferences  from  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  which  they  pro- 
fessed to  receive.  I  think  I  have  given  abundant  evidence  of 
this  unworthy  and  reprehensible  course  of  conduct  in  the  pages 
of  that  Essay.  The  Unitarians  found  it  utterly  impossible  to 
hold  the  Orthodox  to  the  plain  significance  of  their  own  formulas. 
They  said  they  were  Calvinists,  that  they  accepted  the  doctrines 
of  the  Puritans,  that  they  held  to  the  articles  of  the  Assembly's 
Catechism  and  of  the  New  England  Confession  of  Faith.  Very 
well.  This  seemed  to  give  a  fair  starting-ground  for  the  discus- 
sion. The  Unitarians  avowed  that  they  did  not  accept  Calvin- 
ism, nor  its  doctrines,  nor  the  standards  just  mentioned.  They 
proceeded  to  define  Calvinism,  and  to  quote  these  doctrines,  and 
they  were  immediately  assailed  as  if  they  had  been  a  most  un- 
common company  of  deceivers  and  slanderers.  The  Christian 
Spectator,  as  I  have  quoted  it  (p.  57),  insisted  upon  the  author- 
ities in  the  case  for  charging  upon  Calvinism  such  odious  views 
of  human  nature  under  God's  righteous  rule,  and  flatly  denied 
that  the  Institutes  of  Calvin,  the  works  of  the  Westminster  As- 
sembly, &c.  contained  the  doctrine  charged  upon  them.  But 
when  evidence  which  no  reasonable  person  could  refute  was 
brought  to  bear  upon  these  denials,  the  Spectator,  with  the  most 
amazing  effrontery,  affirmed  (p.  59) :  "  What  Calvin  believed 
and  taught,  and  what  any  modern  Calvinistic  authors  have  taught, 
are  questions  of  no  real  importance  in  the  present  discussion." 
How  could  there  be  any  profitable  discussion,  as  between  Chris- 


448  APPENDIX. 

tian  opponents,  when  such  a  sleight  as  this  came  in  as  a  token  of 
the  irritation  of  the  Orthodox  party,  and  as  a  sure  means  of  irri- 
tating the  Unitarian  party  ?  The  Orthodox  were  goaded  into  the 
heats  of  passion  by  being  compelled  to  face  the  literal  terms 
of  their  own  formulas,  unrelieved  by  the  plausible"  softening 
explanations  and  reductions  through  which  their  own  teachers 
presented  them.  The  Unitarians  were  forced  to  the  conviction, 
that  the  Orthodox  wished  the  credit  and  the  security  of  holding 
to  the  creed  of  the  fathers  in  its  undiminished  integrity  and 
rigidness  ;  while  they  were  still  ashamed,  under  the  light  of  day, 
to  admit  to  themselves,  what  Dr.  Edward  Beecher  has  so  nobly 
confessed,  its  utter  "  inconsistency  with  the  principles  of  justice 
and  righteousness  in  the  Divine  government." 

I  endeavored  to  write  about  this  painful  element  in  the  old 
controversy  with  candor  and  moderation.  I  could  not  suppress 
all  reference  to  it,  nor  write  otherwise  than  rebukingly  of  the 
inconsistency  and  unfairness  of  the  course  pursued  by  the  Or- 
thodox. The  embittered  and  malignant  spirit  which  their  eva- 
sions of  their  own  creed  introduced  into  the  controversy  will 
always  require  notice  from  the  historian  of  the  controversy,  as 
the  phenomenon  is  so  obtrusively  offensive  there.  Rather  than 
utter  in  one  manly  sentence  the  avowal,  "  We  do  not  hold 
unqualified  Calvinism,  and  will  not  defend  it,"  the  Orthodox 
preferred  to  charge  upon  their  Unitarian  opponents  ignorance, 
slander,  and  the  most  odious  vices.  This  I  had  to  say  in  order 
to  be  true  to  the  relation  of  facts  which  there  was  no  disguising. 
My  own  personal  acquaintance  with  many  Orthodox  persons  of 
recent  years  would  prevent  my  charging  upon  them  my  own 
construction  of  their  professed  creed.  J  understand  them  as 
avowing  their  belief,  that  God  calls  us  all  into  being  with  a 
wrecked  nature,  holds  us  to  a  service  which  only  an  unimpaired 
nature  could  perform,  and  dooms  us  to  an  unspeakable  woe  for 
our  shortcoming.  This,  in  the  best  exercise  of  the  faculties 
which  God  has  given  me,  and  with  all  the  mastery  I  can  exer- 
cise over  every  bias  that  might  pervert  my  judgment,  —  this  is 
the  only  intelligible  view  which  I  can  gather  from  the  Orthodox 
doctrine  of  human  nature.  But  I  would  not  charge  that  view 
upon  an  Orthodox  friend  ;  for  I  know  how  angry  or  uncomfort- 


APPENDIX.  449 

able  an  Orthodox  person  is  made  by  having  his  own  tenets  set 
forth  in  the  frank,  strong  language  of  one  who  rejects  them  as 
revolting  and  impious.  An  Orthodox  believer  wishes  the  benefit 
of  all  the  palliating,  subduing,  apologetic  phraseology  and  meta- 
physics that  can  possibly  relieve  the  hideousness  of  his  naked 
doctrine.  This  benefit  the  Unitarians,  when  their  controversy 
was  sharp,  would  not  yield  to  the  Orthodox.  They  insisted  that 
those  who  professed  to  be  Calvinists,  and  to  defend  Calvinism, 
should  face  and  recognize  Calvinism,  and  not  take  refuge  behind 
some  softened,  reduced  shape  of  the  grim  spectre. 

Now  my  attempt  to  do  justice  to  this  element  in  the  contro- 
versy, and  to  rebuke  and  censure  in  measured  terms  the  injustice 
of  evading  a  fair  issue  once  espoused,  has  drawn  from  my  critic 
the  following  language  :  — 

"  And  here  we  are  sorry  to  say  that  Mr.  Ellis's  wonted  fair- 
ness and  candor  seem,  in  a  great  measure,  to  forsake  him.  He 
too  often  seems  heated  and  excited,  and  on  that  account  incapa- 
ble of  doing  that  justice  to  his  opponents,  or  his  subject,  to  which 
his  unsophisticated  good-nature  would  be  likely  to  prompt  him. 
But  we  derive  one  advantage  from  his  misfortune.  It  will  be 
the  less  necessary  to  follow  and  refute  him.  Our  remarks,  in 
reply,  may  be  very  brief.'1 

They  are  brief,  too  brief, —  so  brief  as  not  to  meet  a  single 
one  of  my  prominent  positions  in  the  Essay.  He  shall  have 
the  benefit,  however,  of  addressing  my  readers  for  himself. 
The  following  paragraph  is  an  ingenious  combination  of  state- 
ments to  be  admitted,  and  statements  that  might  be  questioned. 
The  zeal  of  the  writer  has  driven  him  into  anachronisms 
which  make  him  appear  uncandid,  though  I  would  not  for  a 
moment  entertain  the  suspicion  that  he  could  be  influenced  by 
any  other  than  honorable  motives.  Yet  he  none  the  less  makes 
some  of  the  concessions  and  confessions  which  Unitarians  drew 
out  of  the  Orthodox  grudgingly,  as  admissions  of  their  reduced 
Calvinism,  to  show  as  if  they  had  been  publicly  avowed  be- 
fore the  controversy  as  the  terms  in  view  of  which  it  was  to 
be  conducted. 

"  Mr.  Ellis  begins  by  affirming  that  the  early  '  Unitarians  un- 
derstood and  avowed  that  they  were  assailing,  not  the  undefined 
and  modified  semblance  now  called  Orthodoxy,  but  Calvinism^ 

38* 


450  APPENDIX. 

which   had  expressed  itself  in  positive  formulas,  and  to  which 
the    Orthodox  party  nominally   professed   an  unqualified  alle- 
giance.'   (p.  55.)     We   care  not  what  these  early  Unitarians 
1  understood  and  avowed.'     They  well  knew,  and  we  know,  that 
the  current  Orthodoxy  of  New  England,  in  the  year  1815,  when 
the  Unitarian  Controversy  properly  opened,  was  not  precisely 
that  of  the  old  Calvinistic  formulas.      To  these    formulas  the 
Orthodox  of  that  day  did  not  '  profess  an  unqualified  allegiance.' 
They  were  willing  to  accept  them,  and  they  did,  4  for  substance 
of  doctrine,'  as  the  phrase  was  ;  but  this  implies  that  they  were 
not  accepted  ad  literam.     Nor  were  the  modifications  of  state- 
ment which  they  wished  to  make  unknown  to  the  public,  or  to 
Unitarians.     They  had  long  been  exhibited  in  sermons  and  in 
books.     They  were  paraded  with  some  exaggerations  in  Ely's 
Contrast,  as  early  as  1811,  and  of  this  work  an  elaborate  re- 
view had  been  published  in  Norton's  Repository.     All  this  took 
place  some  years  before  the  opening  of  the  Unitarian  Contro- 
versy.    And  yet,  at  the  commencement  of  the  controversy,  the 
attempt  was  made,  and  is  still  persisted  in,  to  hold  the  Orthodox 
to  the  letter  of  the  old  formulas  ;  and  what  is  worse,  to  all  the 
'  logical  deductions?  amounting  in  some  instances  to  the  gross- 
est distortions,  which  their  adversaries  have   been  pleased  to 
draw  out  from  them.     It  was  vain  for  Doctors  Woods,  and  Wor- 
cester, and  Beecher  to  say,  4  We  do  not  accept  your  logical 
deductions,  or  the  old  formulas  themselves,   without  explana- 
tion.'    It  was  vain  for  them   to  state,  as  they  often  did,  and 
had  a  perfect  right  to  do,  (and  their  opponents  should  have  be- 
lieved them  and  met  them  accordingly,)  what  their  explanations 
and  modifications  were.     They  were  brought  back  and  reined 
up  to  the  '  old  formulas,'  with  the  appended  '  logical  deductions,' 
and  must  fight  for  these,  or  abandon  the  contest." 

Here,  it  will  be  seen,  is  the  old  charge  of  misrepresentation, 
because  Unitarians  insisted  upon  taking  Calvinism  to  mean  Cal- 
vinism. My  critic  says,  he  "  cares  not  what  the  early  Unitari- 
ans understood  and  avowed."  But  they  did  care.  They  knew 
their  aims  ;  they  had  a  right  to  choose  their  aims  ;  they  did 
choose  them ;  they  avowed  them.  They  undertook  an  assault 
upon  Calvinism,  upon  the  doctrines  of  the  Westminster  As- 
sembly's Catechism  and  of  the  New  England  Confession  of 
Faith.  They  did  not  undertake  to  assail  the  specific  theological 
system  of  either  Dr.  Woods,  Dr.  Beecher,  or  Dr.  Worcester, 
for  the  best  reason  in  the  world,  —  they  did  not  know  what  the 
system   of  either  of  those  divines  was,  and    might   not   have 


APPENDIX.  451 

thought  it  worth  their  while  to  controvert  the  views  of  an  indi- 
vidual. They  had  no  means  of  knowing,  we  have  no  sufficient 
means  of  knowing  now,  precisely  how  much  of  consistent  Cal- 
vinism those  divines  received  or  rejected.  Dr.  Hodge,  of  the 
Old  School,  tells  us  that  the  New  Theology  does  not  hold  "  the 
substance  of  Orthodox  doctrine."  Unitarians  might  shrink  from 
this  direct  giving  of  the  lie  to  their  Orthodox  opponents,  even  at 
the  risk  of  offending  them  by  charging  upon  them  their  own 
construction  of  the  substance  of  Calvinism.  But  there  was  one 
privilege  demanded  by  the  Orthodox  which  the  Unitarians  had 
no  idea  of  granting  them,  namely,  the  privilege  of  professing 
to  be  Calvinists  without  believing  Calvinism.  Still  less  would 
Unitarians  permit  any  ingenious  trickery,  under  the  phrase  of 
"  substance  of  doctrine,"  to  metamorphose  Calvinism  into  some- 
thing wholly  different  from  Calvinism.  There  was  a  sort  of 
scientific  passion  for  keeping  the  verisimilitude  of  old  fossilized 
antiquities,  which  led  the  Unitarians  to  insist  that  Calvinism 
should  not  be  trifled  with  even  by  its  assumed  patrons.  The 
feeling  was  similar  to  that  which  would  protest  against  the 
patching  out  and  filling  in  and  substituting,  by  any  of  Barnum's 
fabrications,  of  a  veritable  collection  of  the  remains  of  old 
saurians  and  mastodons.  As  my  critic  says,  "  Unitarians  well 
knew  that  the  current  Orthodoxy  of  New  England  in  the  year 
1815,  when  the  Unitarian  Controversy  properly  opened,  was 
not  precisely  that  of  the  old  Calvinistic  formulas."  Why,  then, 
did  it  pretend  to  be  substantially  what  it  was  not  precisely  ? 
Why  did  it  insist,  in  all  sorts  of  persistent  phrases,  that  it  held  the 
faith  of  the  Reformers  and  the  New  England  fathers,  and  of 
their  Catechism  and  their  Confession  ?  "  The  modifications  of 
statement  which  the  Orthodox  wished  to  make,"  were  known  to 
the  Unitarians.  These  modifications  would  either  affect  the 
substance  of  Calvinism,  or  they  would  not.  If  they  did  affect 
its  substance,  then  Unitarians  denied  jthe  Orthodox  the  right  to 
make  these  modifications  and  still  claim  to  be  Calvinists.  If, 
on  the  contrary,  the  modifications  did  not  reach  to  the  substance 
of  Calvinism,  then  the  Unitarians  did  no  wrong  in  holding  the 
Orthodox  to  the  Calvinistic  formulas.  It  was  fair  that  they 
should  "  fight  for  those,  or  abandon  the  contest." 


452  APPENDIX. 

If,  as  my  critic  fears,  heat  and  excitement  interfered  with 
my  candor  in  reviewing  this  part  of  the  controversy,  he  would 
hardly  allow  that  I  am  reasonable  in  objecting  strongly  to  his 
own  course  in  the  remainder  of  his  paper.  He  quotes  some  of 
the  strong  and  pointed  statements  made  by  Unitarians  and  my- 
self, to  set  forth  what  we  understand  to  be  the  substantial  Cal- 
vinistic  doctrine  of  human  nature,  and  our  objections  to  it.  He 
then  adds :  "  Such  is  the  view  of  the  doctrine  of  depravity 
which,  through  this  long  article,  Mr.  Ellis  imputes  to  the  Or- 
thodox of  New  England,  and  which  he  labors  to  expose  and 
refute."  My  reader  has  but  to  turn  back  to  the  Essay  and  see 
that  I  impute  this  view  to  the  Westminster  Catechism  and  the 
New  England  Confession,  which  I  quote.  My  critic  proceeds  : 
"  Nor  can  it  be  said  (we  wish  it  could)  that  Mr.  Ellis  did  not 
know  that  he  was  misrepresenting  the  Orthodox,  [I  was  writing 
of  professed  believers  of  the  creeds  quoted,']  for  he  quotes  the 
following  statement  of  Dr.  Woods,  made  more  than  thirty  years 
ago  :  'If  there  is  any  principle  respecting  the  moral  government 
of  God,'  &c."  (See  page  65.)  I  do  quote*  that  disclaimer  of 
Dr.  Woods.  And  why  ?  For  the  very  candid  purpose  which 
my  critic  denies  to  me,  of  showing  that  the  Orthodox  wish  to  be 
relieved  of  the  imputation  of  holding  rigid  Calvinism.  So  far 
am  I  from  affirming  that  all  the  Orthodox  of  New  England  hold 
all  the  views  in  question,  that  I  took  pains  to  quote  from  Dr. 
Woods  and  others,  that  they  might  have  the  benefit  of  their 
qualifying  assertions.  Strangely  enough,  my  critic  resorts  to 
my  own  pages  for  quoted  passages  which  he  thinks  may  be 
adduced  as  means  of  relieving  the  modern  Orthodox  from  re- 
ceiving my  construction  of  Calvinism.  And  yet,  after  I  had 
taken  pains  to  make  the  very  quotations  which  he  adopts,  in  my 
desire  to  deal  fairly  with  the  authors  of  them,  I  am  charged  with 
knowing  that  I  am  misrepresenting  them.  This  certainly  is  hard 
measure.  I  cite  the  creeds,  I  cite  old  Calvinistic  authorities,  I 
state  the  doctrine  drawn  from  them,  and  my  objections  to  it.  I 
add  some  quotations  in  which  professedly  Orthodox  men  ad- 
vance softened  or  modified  views.  My  critic  quotes  my  quota- 
tions, as  available  for  the  very  purpose  to  which  I  adduce  them, 
and  then  censures  me  as  if  I  had  failed  of  this  fair  course.     He 


APPENDIX.  453 

takes  another  of  my  quotations  from  the  Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims, 
(see  page  98),  adduced  by  me  with  the  same  intent  of  allowing 
the  modern  Orthodox  the  benefit  of  their  own  modifications,  he 
continues  the  quotation  a  few  lines  further,  and  then  adds : 
"  These  statements  of  our  real  belief  Mr.  Ellis  had  seen,  some 
of  them  he  had  quoted."  His  piece  contains  two  quotations, 
no  more,  and  they  are  transferred  as  such  from  my  own  pages. 
He  is  safe,  therefore,  in  saying  that  I  "  had  seen  them."  "What 
he  means  by  "  some  of  them  "  being  quoted  by  me,  is  pointless  ; 
it  is  probably  to  be  referred  to  a  careless  slip  of  the  pen  in 
writing.  I  have,  then,  quoted  just  such  passages,  the  same  pas- 
sages, as  he  would  himself  adduce,  to  show  that  the  modern 
Orthodox  do  not  hold  the  constructive  view  of  a  Calvinistic  doc- 
trine previously  presented.  And  yet  my  reward  is  a  charge  of 
intentional  misrepresentation,  as  not  having  done  the  very  thing 
I  have  done.  My  critic  makes  quotations  with  which  to  con- 
demn me ;  but,  with  marvellous  strangeness,  he  borrows  them 
from  me.  All  through  my  Essay,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  it,  I  recognize  fully  the  modifications  of  Orthodox  doc- 
trine. See  particularly  the  statement  beginning  near  the  bottom 
of  page  59. 

I  will  overlook,  and  freely  pardon,  the  error  into  which  my 
critic  was  thus  led,  probably  by  reading  wearily  and  carelessly 
my  long  article.  But  his  next  paragraph  would  justify  some 
sharpness  of  reply  from  me.  By  bringing  together  three  sen- 
tences, or  parts  of  sentences,  culled  from  a  space  of  twenty 
pages  in  my  article,  and  by  wholly  severing  the  connection  of 
thought  and  the  line  of  remark  in  them,  he  would  present  me 
in  the  ridiculous  light  of  the  following  inconsistencies. 

"  In  his  remarks  upon  the  quoted  statements  of  our  real  be- 
lief, Mr.  Ellis  talks  variously.  In  one  place,  he  represents  our 
modifications  as  4  unintelligible,'  and  says  that,  '  singly  or  to- 
gether, they  do  not  give  much  relief  (p.  66).  Then  he  repre- 
sents them  as  so  evasive  and  pitiable,  as  to  be  a  *  scandal  to  our 
whole  profession  '  (p.  81).  But  finally,  thinking  rather  more 
favorably  of  them,  he  says  :  '  The  modifications,  abatements,  and 
palliations  of  which  professedly  Orthodox  writers  have  felt  com- 
pelled to  avail  themselves,  in  dealing  with  this  doctrine,  have 
been  of  great  service  to  us '  (p.  89)." 


454  APPENDIX. 

I  do  use  all  the  words  jumbled  together  in  this  paragraph, 
and  as  I  use  them,  and  in  their  connection,  I  think  they  have  a 
meaning  in  them,  and  that  their  assertions  are  happily  consist- 
ent. I  had  hoped  that  the  style  of  controversy  drawn  upon  in 
such  a  jumble  of  an  opponent's  words  was  out  of  date  among 
well-disposed  writers.  If  my  reader  will  do  me  the  favor  to  turn 
to  the  pages  from  which  the  critic  has  quoted  words  enough  to 
make  a  burlesque  of  my  statements,  and  will  connect  them  as  I 
have  connected  them,  I  venture  to  think  that  he  will  find  the  as- 
sertions to  hold  very  well  together.  First,  I  say,  on  page  66, 
that  I  might  have  attempted  to  quote  "  a  series  of  the  ingenious 
or  futile,  the  actual  or  only  apparent  modifications,  and  attempted 
modifications,  of  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  the  nature  and  state 
of  man."  Knowing  very  well,  however,  that  the  metaphysical 
jargon  and  the  subtle  evasions  and  mystifications  employed  by 
theologians  of  the  Old  and  New  Schools  in  their  dealings  with 
this  subject,  were  absolutely  unintelligible  to  many  readers,  I 
declined  the  undertaking.  I  took  care  to  guard  against  leaving 
the  implication  that  much  relief  would  be  found  in  these  modi- 
fications of  Calvinism,  singly  or  together.  They  still  fail  in  re- 
lieving the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  this  unscriptural  and  revolting 
element,  —  that,  born  with  a  nature  ruined  by  an  inherited  cor- 
ruption, we  are  still  held  by  God  to  an  undiminished  responsibil- 
ity. So  much  for  the  unintelligible  quality  in  modern  Orthodox 
speculations,  and  their  deficiency  as  means  for  effectually  clear- 
ing an  offensive  doctrine. 

Secondly,  on  page  81,1  say,  and  I  repeat  with  emphasis  the 
assertion,  that  "  the  lamentable  shifts  and  evasions  and  subtilties 
to  which  Orthodox  theologians  have  had  recourse  during  the  last 
half-century,  in  trying  to  evade  the  plain  meaning  of  this  article 
of  their  creed,  are  a  scandal  upon  our  whole  profession.'"  And 
a  scandal  they  surely  are,  —  a  grievous  one  ;  —  more  scanda- 
lous, because  of  the  sacred  bearings  of  the  argument,  than  are 
the  quirks  and  trickeries,  the  fallacies  and  the  deceptions,  intro- 
duced by  a  class  of  lawyers  into  their  pleadings.  Calvinism  pro- 
poses to  us  in  its  formulas  a  doctrine  which,  if  words  have  any 
clear  meaning,  asserts,  that,  as  the  result  of  our  covenant  or 
federal  relation  with  Adam,  we  are  born  with  a  corrupt  nature, 


APPENDIX.  455 

and  are  yet  held  by  God  to  such  a  responsibility  as  could  be 
justly  exacted  only  of  an  unimpaired  nature.  Unitarians  protest 
against  the  doctrine,  and  reject  it.  They  reject  it  because  it  out- 
rages reason,  justice,  and  Scripture.  They  state  their  objec- 
tions, and  in  this  statement  they  generally  include  a  definition 
of  the  doctrine,  and  a  plain,  frank  description  of  what  is  to  them 
its  odious  and  revolting  quality.  But  how  are  their  statements 
and  objections  met  ?  Often  with  a  whining  and  petulant  com- 
plaint from  Orthodox  disputants,  that  Unitarians  misrepresent 
their  doctrine,  and  also  with  scandalous  tricks  of  language  and 
sophistry  used  in  the  vain  attempt  to  evade  the  substance  of  their 
own  doctrine.  Now  I  have  admitted  that  some  Unitarians  have 
caricatured  Orthodoxy.  But  I  have  also  insisted  that  some  fair- 
minded  and  candid  persons,  as  Unitarians,  have  tried  to  under- 
stand the  Orthodox  doctrine  as  it  is  held  by  its  professed  disci- 
ples, with  all  the  alleviations  and  abatements  of  its  harsh  features 
of  which  its  friends  give  it  the  benefit.  Yet  these  candid  inquir- 
ers find  the  same  odious  and  unjust  quality  in  the  doctrine.  In 
courteous  and  emphatic  terms  they  express  their  dissent,  their 
repugnance  to  it.  What  then  ought  the  Orthodox  to  do  ?  They 
ought  to  defend  their  doctrine  or  to  renounce  it.  They  may 
claim  the  privilege  of  amending  phraseology  where  equivocal  or 
antiquated  words,  or  misleading  phrases,  interfere  with  the  intel- 
ligible announcement  of  their  doctrines.  But  they  can  claim  no 
more  than  this.  As  frank,  bold,  unwavering  champions  of  truth, 
they  should  stand  for  what  they  advance  in  their  formulas. 
They  say,  as  we  understand  them,  that  God  requires  the  tale 
of  brick  without  the  straw ;  that  he  demands  that  a  clean  thing 
should  come  forth  out  of  an  unclean,  that  a  corrupt  nature  should 
develop  into  a  pure  life.  If  the  Orthodox  do  not  say  this,  then 
plainly  we  have  no  real  controversy  with  them  upon  so  vital  an 
issue  as  has  always  been  supposed  to  be  involved  in  the  doctrine 
of  human  nature.  Dr.  Edward  Beecher,  with  noble  and  heroic 
frankness^  has  admitted  that  the  Orthodox  doctrine  includes  pre- 
cisely that  odious  and  shocking  quality  of  injustice,  unrighteous- 
ness, as  ascribed  to  the  Divine  Government ;  and  he  does  more 
than  allow,  he  insists,  that  Unitarianism  rejects  and  assails  it 
with  valid  reason  and  in  loyalty  to  holy  truth.     But  all  Orthodox 


456  APPENDIX. 

believers  will  not  yield  this  full  justice,  nor  even  the  least  meas- 
ure of  it,  to  Unitarians.  Some  of  them  charge  us  with  slan- 
der, falsehood,  and  every  other  unchristian  vice,  rather  than 
admit  that  we  have  the  slightest  ground  for  objecting  to  their 
doctrine.  They  would  make  us  the  most  unreasonable  beings 
in  the  world,  because  we  reject  something  that  is  perfectly  rea- 
sonable. One  would  suppose  that  the  intelligence  of  educated 
men  in  this  age  of  the  world  was  equal  to  the  task  of  interpret- 
ing the  meaning  of  a  Calvinistic  formula.  But  no  !  Unitarians 
prove  that  they  cannot  interpret  it,  simply  by  rejecting  the  doc- 
trine conveyed  in  it.  To  make  this  appear,  the  doctrine  has 
been  tampered  and  trifled  with  by  "  lamentable  shifts,  evasions, 
and  subtilties  "  on  the  part  of  its  professed  disciples,  in  a  way 
to  amount,  as  I  have  said,  and  repeat,  to  a  scandal  upon  the  pro- 
fession of  theologians. 

And,  thirdly,  I  have  said  on  page  89,  and  I  also  wish  to  say  it 
again,  that  "  All  the  modifications,  abatements,  and  palliatives 
of  which  professedly  Orthodox  writers  have  felt  compelled  to 
avail  themselves  in  dealing  with  their  doctrine,  have  been  of 
great  service  to  Unitarians."  And  why  do  I  say  this  ?  And 
how  do  I  consider  that  we  have  been  served  in  this  way  ?  My 
own  pages  answer  these  questions.  My  critic  had  only  to  note 
what  I  said  in  connection  with  the  first  of  the  three  sentences 
which  he  has  quoted  and  jumbled  together,  in  order  to  have  been 
prevented  from  attempting  to  prove  my  assertions  inconsistent. 
For,  on  page  66,  I  had  said  of  these  attempted  modifications  of 
Cavinistic  doctrine  :  "  They  are  of  service  to  us  as  showing  a 
constant  uneasiness  under  any  form  in  which  the  old  doctrine 
has  as  yet  been  presented,  and  as  indicating  how  trifling  a  re- 
laxation of  its  old  terms  will  be  welcomed  as  a  comfort."  Again, 
on  p.  61,  I  had  said :  "  We  are  ready  to  grant  to  the  Orthodox 
the  fullest  benefit  of  all  the  modifications  of  this  doctrine  which 
the  most  ingenious  man  among  them  is  able  to  devise.  But  we 
must  urge  that  these  modifications  all  accrue  to  our  side,  as  they 
relax  and  soften  and  qualify  the  sternness  of  our  old  foe,  and 
are  yielded  or  availed  of  for  the  sake  of  mitigating  the  repulsive- 
ness  of  the  original  doctrine." 

Thus  I  have  taken  pains  to  put  back  into  their  connection  the 


APPENDIX.  457 

three  sentences  which,  after  having  suffered  violence,  were  used 
to  prove  upon  me  inconsistency  or  ludicrous  incoherency  of 
statement.  Set  the  three  sentences  together  by  their  connec- 
tion, and  they  affirm  these  three  easily  demonstrable  proposi- 
tions :  that  many  of  the  attempted  modifications  of  Calvinistic 
theology  require  such  metaphysical  terms  and  subtle  distinctions 
for  their  exposition  as  to  be  unintelligible  to  many  readers,  while 
they  still  stop  short  of  essentially  relieving  the  reproach  of  the 
doctrine  ;  that  some  of  the  devices  of  theologians  to  evade,  and 
get  round,  and  extenuate  and  apologize  for  formulas  which  they 
will  neither  frankly  yield  up  nor  boldly  defend,  has  brought 
scandals  upon  our  profession  (I  did  not  include  as  among  these 
scandals  Dr.  Edward  Beecher's  theory  for  supplementing  Cal- 
vinism, that,  when  we  are  born  into  the  world,  we  are  old  sinners 
under  condemnation  from  a  previous  state,  with  a  new  chance 
for  redemption,  as  this  theory  is  ingenious,  not  scandalous) ;  and 
that  every  concession,  evasion,  and  modification  made  in  defence 
of  Orthodoxy,  whether  amounting  to  much  or  nothing,  is  of 
service  to  Unitarians,  as  revealing  the  restlessness  and  lack  of 
full  satisfaction  among  the  Orthodox. 

Most  gladly  would  I  have  used  the  space  just  given  to  a  side 
issue,  in  meeting  any  argument  offered  by  my  critic  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  positive  points  advanced  in  my  Essay.  But  he  has 
not  met  a  single  one  of  my  positions,  he  has  not  sought  to  re- 
lieve a  single  one  of  the  objections  which  I  urge  against  the  Or- 
thodox doctrine,  nor  questioned  a  single  one  of  the  arguments  by 
which  I  defend  the  Unitarian  view.  His  article  is  wholly  given 
up  to  statements  of  the  same  character  as  those  to  which  I  have 
already  referred.     Here  are  more  of  the  same  tenor. 

"  It  is  clear  from  these  quotations  [those  which  I  have  made 
in  my  Essay],  that  Mr.  Ellis  knew  what  our  statements  were,  in 
regard  to  this  doctrine  of  depravity.  He  knew  what  they  had 
been,  from  the  beginning  of  the  controversy  to  the  present  time. 
And  yet  he  persists  in  urging  upon  us  dogmas  which  we  do  not 
believe,  insisting  that  we  must  take  them,  swallow  them,  and  be 
responsible  for  them,  when  we  repudiate  them,  or  some  of  them, 
as  sincerely  as  he  does  himself.  And  this  is  that  of  which  we 
complain.  Are  we  not  competent  to  make  a  statement  of  our 
own  views  ?  And  when  we  do  make  it  fairly,  honestly,  and  re- 
39 


458  APPENDIX. 

peatedly,  are  we  not  worthy  to  be  believed  ?  Must  we  be  per- 
petually held  up  to  ridicule  and  reproach,  as  holding  opinions 
which  are  as  foreign  to  us  as  they  are  to  our  accusers  ? 

"  Will  it  be  asked  again,  What  do  you  believe  on  this  painful 
subject  of  human  depravity  ?  I  answer,  we  believe  just  what 
Mr.  Ellis  has  quoted  us  as  believing,  in  his  extracts  from  the 
Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims.  We  believe  '  that,  since  the  fall  of 
Adam,'  —  and,  I  will  add,  in  consequence  of  the  fall  of  Adam, — 
4  men  are,  in  their  natural  state,  altogether  destitute  of  true  holi- 
ness, and  entirely  depraved  ' ;  but  '  that,  though  thus  depraved, 
they  are  justly  required  to  love  God  with  all  the  heart,  and  justly 
punishable  for  disobedience  ;  or  in  other  words,  they  are  com- 
plete moral  agents,  proper  subjects  of  moral  government,  and 
truly  accountable  to  God  for  their  actions.' — Vol.  I.  p.  11. 
'  We  do  not  believe  that  the  posterity  of  Adam  are  personally 
chargeable  with  eating  the  forbidden  fruit ;  or  that  their  constitu- 
tion is  so  depraved  as  to  leave  them  no  natural  ability  to  love 
and  serve  God,  or  as  to  render  it  improper  for  him  to  require 
obedience.  We  do  not  believe  that  God  has  made  a  part  of 
mankind  on  purpose  to  damn  them  ;  or  that  he  compels  them  to 
sin ;  or  that  he  mocks  them  with  offers  of  pardon  on  conditions 
that  they  have  no  power  to  comply  with  ;  or  that  he  punishes 
them  eternally  for  not  performing  impossibilities.'  —  Vol.  II. 
pp.  3,  4. 

"  This  statement  of  our  belief  on  the  subject  of  depravity  we 
made,  in  all  sincerity,  almost  thirty  years  ago.  In  all  sincerity, 
we  repeat  it  now.  We  cannot  but  think  it  intelligible  and  expli- 
cit; and  if  Mr.  Ellis  cannot,  as  he  intimates,  harmonize  all  parts 
of  it,  we  humbly  think  that  we  can.  It  will  be  seen,  at  a  glance, 
that  it  differs  most  essentially  from  Professor  Norton's  statement 
of  the  Orthodox  belief,  and  from  the  extracts  above  quoted  from 
Mr.  Ellis.  And  this  imputing  to  us  of  opinions  which  we  do  not 
receive,  and  then  arguing  from  them  as  though  they  were  con- 
ceded verities,  and  holding  us  up  to  scorn  and  reproach  on  ac- 
count of  them  ;  —  this  is  that  of  which  we  feel  that  we  have 
good  reason  to  complain." 

After  the  repeated  perusal  of  the  above  extract,  I  can  hardly 
account  for  the  strange  misunderstanding  which  has  evidently 
warped  the  judgment  of  my  critic.  The  very  quotations  from 
modern  Orthodox  writers  which  he  credits  me  with  presenting 
on  my  own  pages,  were  made  by  me  for  the  set  purpose  of  giv- 
ing his  brethren  the  benefit  of  their  own  professed  qualifications 
of  Calvinism,  which  he  insists  that  I  deny  to  them.  If  I  had 
given  no  such  quotations,  he  would  have  had  reason  in  his  cen- 


APPENDIX.  459 

sure.  But  as  I  do  offer  them,  and  offer  them,  too,  as  they  are 
offered  by  their  writers,  in  mitigation  of  judgment,  what  more 
could  I  do  ?  My  critic  says  :  "  We  believe  just  what  Mr.  Ellis 
has  quoted  us  as  believing,  in  his  extracts  from  the  Spirit  of  the 
Pilgrims."  Very  well.  Then  I  have  fairly  stated  their  belief, 
have  I  not  ?  Near  the  close  of  the  extract,  my  critic  says  that 
the  Orthodox  belief,  as  just  defined  by  him,  differs  from  Mr.  Nor- 
ton's statement  of  it,  and  from  statements  of  it  made  in  some 
other  quotations  from  me.  Very  true  again  ;  and  the  statements 
ought  to  differ,  according  to  his  own  showing.  For  those  defini- 
tions given  by  Mr.  Norton  and  myself  were  of  old-fashioned,  pure 
Calvinism,  from  its  formulas  and  its  stanch  champions.  Some 
of  these  my  critic  says  he  repudiates  as  sincerely  as  I  do,  and 
that  they  are  as  foreign  to  some  of  the  Orthodox  as  to  the  Unita- 
rians. But  this  does  not  prove  that  the  repudiated  opinions  are 
not  Calvinistic,  nor  that  they  were  never  entertained  by  the  Or- 
thodox, nor  that  they  are  not  to  be  fairly  inferred  by  sound  and 
irrefutable  logical  deductions  from  the  very  substance  of  Ortho- 
doxy. It  was  against  this  veritable  form  of  Orthodoxy,  namely, 
Calvinism,  easily  ascertainable  and  well  understood,  and  not 
against  its  softened,  palliated  shapings  and  reductions,  that 
Unitarians  first  directed  their  opposition.  The  concrete,  old- 
fashioned  Calvinism  of  the  formulas  and  the  Catechism  and  the 
Confession  was,  I  say  again,  the  original  target  of  Unitarianism. 
They  knew  what  that  was,  and  could  get  at  it.  Every  subse- 
quent modification  and  abatement  of  its  doctrinal  form  or  sub- 
stance —  especially  those  for  which  my  critic  pleads  in  his 
attempt  to  state  them  —  has  received  attention  from  Unita- 
rians. Their  periodicals  and  controversial  essays  will  afford 
abundant  proof  that  they  have  been  quite  eager  to  seize  upon, 
yes,  even  to  anticipate  and  forecast,  every  heretical  development, 
every  modern  phase  of  dissent,  from  the  Calvinism  of  the  stand- 
ards. Indeed,  my  own  aim  and  method  were  to  begin  with  fair 
quotations  from  these  standards,  an4  with  contemporary  exposi- 
tions of  them,  as  furnishing  the  criteria  from  which  to  define  the 
faith  of  those  who  accepted  them,  and  the  heresy  of  those  who 
rejected  them.  After  a  clear  statement  of  these  preliminaries,  I 
endeavored,  in  reference  to  each  of  the  great  doctrines  in  con- 


460  APPENDIX. 

troversy,  to  follow  down  the  course  of  discussion,  and  to  make 
note  of  every  substantial  or  supposed  variation  from  Calvinism 
made  by  those  who  still  claimed  to  be  Orthodox.  The  quotations 
of  which  my  critic  has  availed  himself  for  exhibiting  his  own 
modifications  of  the  creed,  were  offered  by  me  in  the  carrying 
out  of  this  design.  I  cannot  yet  see  how  I  could  have  pursued  a 
method  better  suited  to  meet  the  wishes  of  my  critic,  or  the  con- 
ditions of  fair  polemics. 

Within  the  compass  of  the  pages  now  gathered  into  this  vol- 
ume, will  be  found  a  recognition  of  every  modified  and  softened 
statement  of  the  leading  Orthodox  doctrines  that  has  ever  passed 
under  my  notice.  As  one  of  my  objects  was  to  prove  that  Or- 
thodox men  had  departed  from  their  standards,  or  tried  to  evade 
the  full  doctrinal  significance  of  them,  all  such  subdued  views  as 
my  critic  wishes  to  have  the  benefit  of  were  the  very  things 
which  I  sought  to  hunt  out,  and  to  present  in  the  plainest  way. 
How,  then,  can  he  justly  accuse  me  of  urging  upon  him  dogmas 
which  he  does  not  believe  ? 

I  think,  however,  that  I  can  appreciate,  or  at  least  understand, 
the  reason  why  my  method  and  course  of  argument  should  have 
called  out  the  expression  of  such  indignant  feeling  from  my  op- 
ponent. It  is  simply  because  I  will  not  allow  that  the  modifica- 
tions of  Calvinism  conceded  by  him  and  his  friends  furnish  any 
essential  relief  of  what  are  to  us  the  unscriptural  and  revolting 
features  of  the  system.  Most  cheerfully  would  I  yield  this  al- 
lowance if  I  could  do  so ;  but  I  cannot.  On  the  contrary,  the 
statements  of  my  critic  are  only  to  my  mind  another  exhibition 
of  the  utter  futility  of  such  attempts  to  hold  the  substance  of  Cal- 
vinism through  the  softening  and  apologetic  help  of  a  mere  va- 
riation of  phrase  in  the  verbal  exposition  of  it.  I  cannot  allow 
that  my  critic  has  succeeded,  where  hundreds  of  good  men  be- 
fore him  have  failed,  in  reconciling  the  substance  of  Calvinistic 
doctrine  about  the  ruin  of  our  race  in  Adam,  and  its  undimin- 
ished responsibility,  with  the  sense  of  justice  and  the  gift  of  rea- 
son with  which  our  Maker  has  endowed  us,  and  which  he  ad- 
dresses in  the  inspired  teachings  of  Scripture.  Let  him  turn 
from  me,  and  meet  the  frank  avowals  of  his  own  brother  in  faith, 
Dr.  Edward  Beecher.     Modify  Orthodoxy  as  he  may,  if  he  still 


APPENDIX.  461 

retains  the  fiction  that  God  demands  a  clean  thing  from  an  un- 
clean, he  retains  the  Calvinistic  dogma  which  we  insist  flouts  the 
very  foundations  of  Divine  equity.  Explicit  as  my  critic  says 
his  professed  departure  from  real  Calvinism  is,  I  must  frankly 
reply,  that  to  me  it  is  not  explicit,  that  it  amounts  to  little,  if 
anything.  It  leaves  still  the  outrage  which  is  inherent  in  Calvin- 
ism,—  of  assigning  to  us  a  prejudiced  start  on  an  immortal  ca- 
reer, of  making  human  life  a  foregone  conclusion  at  its  com- 
mencement. The  statement  still  leaves  the  question,  "  What 
do  you  believe  on  this  painful  subject  of  human  depravity  ?  " 
wholly  unanswered,  so  far  as  the  answer  promised  or  expected 
is  to  convey  any  essential  relief  from  pure  Calvinism.  With  the 
utmost  courtesy,  but  with  frankness,  I  must  reply  to  my  critic, 
that  I  cannot  reconcile  the  two  terms  in  which  he  avows  his  own 
belief.  After  his  warm  protest  against  being  held  answerable  for 
Calvinism,  he  sets  himself  to  meet  the  question,  "  What,  then, 
do  you  believe  ?  "  and  I  read  on,  looking  to  find  some  generous 
concession,  some  explicit  renouncement  of  the  odious  element  in 
Calvinism,  some  more  reasonable  and  Scriptural  exhibition  of  the 
relation  between  man's  native  condition  and  his  responsibility. 
But  I  am  grievously  disappointed.  I  cannot  reconcile  the  state- 
ment, that,  in  consequence  of  the  fall  of  Adam,  we  come  into  ex- 
istence entirely  depraved,  with  the  statement,  that,  though  thus 
depraved,  we  are  justly  required  to  love  God  with  all  the  heart, 
and  are  justly  punishable  for  disobedience.  How  does  the  doc- 
trinal belief  affirmed  in  those  two  statements  differ  from  the  doc- 
trine of  the  formula?  The  two  statements  appear  to  us  self- 
contradictory.  They  involve  that  gross  outrage  upon  reason  and 
righteousness,  of  which  we  complain  in  Calvinism.  To  assert, 
that,  though  we  are  born  without  wings,  we  are  justly  punishable 
by  God  because  we  do  not  fly  in  the  air  all  the  way  up  to  God, 
is  to  our  minds  not  one  whit  more  affronting  to  reason  and  equity, 
than  to  assert  that,  though  born  entirely  depraved,  we  are  justly 
punishable  for  not  loving  God  with  all  our  hearts.  Of  what  charac- 
ter or  value  must  be  all  the  love  of  an  entirely  depraved  heart  ? 
Is  pure  love,  or  the  love  of  a  pure  object,  possible  to  such  a  heart? 
I  say,  then,  frankly,  as  my  critic  very  reasonably  fears  that  I  shall 
say,  "  that  I  cannot  harmonize  all  the  parts "  of  his  proffered 
39* 


462-  APPENDIX. 

doctrinal  statement.  I  say  more,  namely,  that  he  himself  can- 
not harmonize  them  in  a  way  intelligible  to  other  minds.  If,  fur- 
ther, he  asks  me  to  admit  that  his  view  differs  substantially  from 
what  he  says  that  he  repudiates,  I  must  decline  to  make  the  ad- 
mission. 

But  I  cannot  pass  without  a  word  of  denial  his  vehement  com- 
plaint, at  the  close  of  the  above  extract,  that  Unitarians  hold  up 
him  and  his  brethren  to  "  scorn  and  reproach  "  on  account  of 
their  professed  belief.  It  is  the  dogma  which  we  subject  to  that 
scorn  and  reproach,  as  an  outrage  upon  the  reason  and  the  sense 
of  justice  with  which  our  Maker  has  endowed  us,  as  an  utter 
perversion  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  and  as  the  occasion  of 
an  untold  amount  of  infidelity,  first,  among  those  outside  of  the 
Church,  and,  second,  among  those  who  have  once  been  received 
into  it.  We  are,  therefore,  bound  to  scorn  and  reproach  the 
dogma,  to  try  against  it  every  weapon  which  Christian,  faith, 
reason,  logic,  and  zeal  can  supply.  The  only  modification  of 
the  dogma  which  will  be  explicit  enough  for  us,  will  be  an  entire 
and  honest  renunciation  of  it.  There  are  two  ways  by  which  it 
may  be  relieved :  one  is  by  graduating  the  claims  which  God 
makes  upon  us  to  the  impaired  nature  with  which,  in  the  course 
of  his  providence,  we  are  born  into  this  world  ;  the  other  is  by 
asserting  for  us  such  a  degree  of  unvitiated,  uncorrupted  moral 
power,  as  will  enable  us  to  love  God  with  all  our  hearts.  Either 
of  these  methods  of  relief  would  involve  the  renunciation  of  Cal- 
vinism. My  critic  avails  himself  of  neither  of  them.  He  asserts 
entire  depravity  at  birth ;  he  claims  for  God  the  whole  heart's 
love  ;  he  holds  us  justly  punishable,  and  by  a  most  terrific 
doom,  for  falling  short  of  what,  under  the  conditions,  is  an 
utter  impossibility. 


APPENDI^<  .X^B^^^s.   •  463 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  THE 


The  fifth  paper  in  the  series  upon  which  I  am  commenting 
deals  with  some  few,  and  those  by  no  means  the  most  important, 
points  suggested  in  the  third  of  the  preceding  Essays.  It  opens 
with  another  of  those  partial  representations  of  my  views,  which, 
through  the  aid  of  imperfect  quotations,  attempt  to  convict  me 
of  inconsistency  or  incoherency  of  statement.  Thus  my  critic 
writes  :  — 

"  Mr.  Ellis  does  not  object  to  the  Trinity  on  the  ground  ;  that 
the  doctrine  involves  a  mystery?  but  rather  on  the  ground  of 
1  its  utter  absurdity.'  And  yet  he  confesses  that,  '  in  some  of 
the  modern  shapings  of  the  doctrine,  there  is  no  reason  for  re- 
jecting it,  which  would  weigh  against  the  slightest  good  reason 
for  receiving  it.  But  the  slightest  reason  for  receiving  it  is  the 
very  thing  which  is  lacking.'  If  the  doctrine  be  an  ■  utter  ab- 
surdity,' it  would  seem  that  there  ought  to  be  strong  reasons  for 
rejecting  it,  —  strong  enough  to  overbalance  any  and  all  reasons 
in  its  favor.     But  let  that  pass." 

It  is  true  that  I  represent  Unitarians  as  objecting  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  not  because  it  states  a  mystery,  but  because 
it  is  absurdly  inconsistent  in  the  very  terms  which  it  brings  to- 
gether for  making  its  proposition  (p.  119).  I  have  also  admitted 
what  I  am  quoted  as  asserting  in  regard  to  some  of  the  modern 
shapings  of  the  doctrine  (p.  116).  And  yet  I  have  not  avowed 
that  any  force  of  reasoning  would  induce  me  to  accept  an  "  utter 
absurdity."  It  is  the  bald,  dogmatic  statement  of  the  doctrine 
in  the  formula,  copied  on  a  previous  page,  which  I  represent  as 
involving  an  absurdity.  But  my  critic  seems  to  have  skipped 
the  following  sentence,  in  which  I  pass  from  the  doctrine  as  ad- 
vanced and  denned  in  the  formula,  to  the  shadowy  views  of 
some  professed  Trinitarians.  My  words  seem  plain  enough  as 
I  turn  back  to  them,  on  p.  115  :  "  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
has  indeed  been  so  sublimated  and  refined,  and  so  reduced  in 
the  rigidity  of  its  old  technical  terms,  that  it  may  now  be  said  to 
offer  itself  in  some  quite  inoffensive  and  unobjectionable  shapes." 


464  APPENDIX. 

My  critic  now  favors  me  with  some  direct  replies,  which  it 
gives  me  pleasure  to  meet  as  directly. 

"  Mr.  Ellis  objects,  first,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  that  •  it 
is  impossible  to  state  it  in  the  language  of  Scripture.'  And  so  it 
is  impossible  to  give  a  precise,  scientific  statement  of  many  other 
doctrines,  which  Unitarians  and  Orthodox  both  believe,  in  the 
language  of  Scripture.  The  objection  proves  too  much,  if  it 
proves  anything." 

I  must  try  the  virtue  of  a  flat  denial,  if  courtesy  will  allow,  in 
meeting  my  opponent  on  so  vital  a  point  where  an  unproved  as- 
sertion cannot  be  admitted.  I  therefore  do  deny  positively  that 
Unitarians  receive  one  single  doctrine  or  tenet  of  their  faith 
which  they  are  unable  to  state  in  the  precise  language  of  Scrip- 
ture. I  might  even  go  so  far  as  to  affirm,  that  we  receive  no  doc- 
trinal tenet  for  which  we  cannot  quote  the  very  words  of  Christ 
himself.  My  critic  must  have  sadly  underrated  the  importance 
which  I  attach  to  the  Unitarian  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  above  announced,  if  he  supposes  he  can  evade  its  force 
so  easily  and  dogmatically  as  he  has  essayed  to  do.  We  boast 
that  our  Scriptural  faith  can  express  itself  in  explicit,  ungarbled, 
positive,  and  emphatic  sentences  of  Scripture.  We  will  receive 
nothing  as  vital  to  our  faith  which  cannot  be  so  expressed.  We 
object  to  Trinitarianism,  and  the  objection  has  never  been  fairly 
met,  and  never  can  be  fairly  met,  that  it  presents  to  us,  as  the 
groundwork  and  basis  of  the  whole  Christian  system  of  revealed 
truths,  a  dogma  for  which  it  cannot  quote  a  single  comprehensive 
text.  It  certainly  cannot  be  alleged  that  it  was  any  less  impor- 
tant for  Christ  and  his  Apostles  to  announce  the  doctrine  clearly 
and  emphatically,  than  that  subsequent  Christian  teachers  should 
lay  stress  upon  it.  What  stress  such  teachers  have  laid  upon  it 
we  all  know.  The  doctrinal  statement  of  the  Trinity  leads  off 
the  Orthodox  creeds :  no  vague,  inferential  implication  of  the 
contents  of  the  doctrine  is  thought  to  be  satisfactory.  Doubt 
about  it  is  dangerous  ;  a  rejection  of  it  is  fatal.  The  doctrine  is 
obtruded  upon  us  in  its  stiffest  literal  terms,  though,  strange  to 
say,  many  of  its  champions  affirm  that  they  dislike  its  terms,  and 
wish  that  they  could  express  it  more  adequately.  Here  certainly 
is  no  backwardness,  no  hesitation,  on  the  part  of  those  who,  be- 


APPENDIX.  465 

lieving  the  doctrine,  think  it  ought  to  be  reiterated  and  empha- 
sized. Now,  how  comes  it  that  Christ  and  his  Apostles  furnish 
us  not  one  single  announcement  of  it?  If  anything  can  be  in- 
ferred with  certainty  as  to  the  belief  of  the  Jews  concerning  the 
mode  of  the  Divine  existence,  it  is  that  they  knew  nothing  of  the 
Orthodox  dogma  of  the  Trinity.  Surely  then  we  might  expect 
that  their  first  Christian  teachers  would  have  been  at  least  as 
careful  to  declare  it  to  them  as  a  new  revelation  of  truth,  the 
basis  of  all  Christian  doctrine,  as  modern  Christian  teachers  are 
to  demand  a  faith  in  it  from  their  pupils.  It  will  not  do  to  say 
that  the  Apostles  left  other  essential  Christian  doctrines  without 
any  direct,  explicit  statement  of  them.  It  is  not  true.  They  had 
a  commission  from  their  Master,  and  they  discharged  it.  What- 
ever they  have  not  taught  plainly,  must  be  pronounced  to  be  no 
part  of  their  teaching,  however  positively  their  successors  may 
have  taught  it.  Peter,  who  preached  to  the  Jews  the  first  Christian 
discourse  after  the  Church  had  risen  from  the  grave  of  its  Found- 
er, told  them  that  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  "  whom  they  had  put 
to  death,"  was  "  a  man  approved  of  God  by  works  which  God 
did  by  him,"  and  that  God  had  raised  him  up.  Words  could  not 
be  more  explicit.  Yet  not  from  them,  and  from  no  other  words 
spoken  by  the  Apostles  to  the  Jews,  as  recorded,  could  they 
have  gathered  a  plain  statement  of  the  Trinity.  As  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, we  find  traces,  among  a  school  of  philosophic  dreamers,  of 
a  sort  of  Trinitarian  conception,  far  unlike  that,  however,  which 
Christian  divines  now  receive,  though  the  dogma  came  into  the 
Church  by  that  channel.  No  direct  announcement  of  the  doc- 
trine was  made  by  the  Apostles  when  they  preached  to  Gen- 
tiles, who  certainly  were  ignorant  of  it,  and  might  claim  to  be 
distinctly  informed  about  the  first  fundamental  doctrine  of  the 
Gospel. 

I  must,  therefore,  reiterate  the  objection  which  my  critic  so 
strangely  tries  to  parry  by  asserting  what  is  directly  opposite  to 
the  truth,  that  Unitarians  receive  many  doctrines  as  of  the  prime 
substance  of  Christianity,  of  which  the  Scriptures  make  no  pre- 
cise statement.  I  must  do  one  thing  more.  I  must  express  my 
disappointment  at  the  hopelessness  of  any  issue  of  harmony  from 
discussions  in  which  the  main  points  receive  such  a  slighting 


466  APPENDIX. 

treatment.  I  do  not  know  a  more  valid  argument  which  could 
be  alleged  to  a  fair  and  unbiassed  mind  against  the  claim  of  any 
doctrine  to  be  received  as  vital  and  fundamental  to  the  Christian 
system,  than  the  fact  that  it  is  not  taught  in  the  plain  and  ear- 
nest utterances  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles.  We  know  how 
eagerly  Trinitarians  would  snatch  at  any  Bible  sentence  which 
comprehended  all  the  elements  of  the  doctrine.  We  know  that 
they  are  at  no  loss  for  words  and  phrases  in  which  to  state  it. 
We  know  how  they  obtrude  it  and  emphasize  it.  We  turn  ear- 
nestly towards  them,  and  ask  why  they  are  compelled  to  do  this 
in  words  and  phrases  and  formulas  of  their  own  invention  ? 
Why  they  cannot  find  a  single  Scripture  sentence  which  will 
serve  their  use  ?  We  hope  much  from  reasonable  men,  when 
we  ask  such  a  question.  We  are  as  honest  and  as  earnest  as 
they  are.  We  wish  to  be  reasonable  and  teachable.  We  pro- 
test that  we  wish  to  have  the  fundamentals  of  the  Christian  sys- 
tem in  the  sufficient  words  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles.  And  what 
satisfaction  do  we  receive  from  our  opponents  ?  Such  only  as 
we  are  left  to  find  in  a  disengenuous  evasion  of  the  difficulty 
that  is  raised,  unless  we  can  accept  such  a  reply  as  my  critic 
offers  to  my  next  objection,  as  follows :  — 

44  4  Again,'  says  Mr.  Ellis,  '  a  fundamental  doctrine  ought  to  be 
emphatically  announced  and  constantly  reiterated.'  And  we 
hold  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  —  in  its  elements,  its  ne- 
cessary component  parts  —  is  i  emphatically  announced  '  in  the 
Scriptures.  We  think  it  is,  not '  constantly,'  but  frequently  reit- 
erated, much  more  frequently  than  '  the  unity  of  God.'" 

That  clause,  "  its  necessary  component  parts"  comes  in  very 
ingeniously.  The  necessary  component  parts  of  almost  any 
doctrine  which  the  human  brain  could  devise,  might  be  found  in 
Scripture,  if  we  admitted  the  lawfulness  of  the  process  for  making 
such  a  composite  of  Scripture  language  as  is  often  brought  to  the 
proof  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  My  critic,  by  that  ingenious 
clause  of  his,  will  have  suggested  quite  forcibly  to  many  Unita- 
rians one  of  their  very  gravest  objections  to  the  admission  of  the 
Scriptural  character  of  that  doctrine.  We  first  object,  that  it  is 
not  directly  taught  in  Scripture.  We  next  object,  almost,  if  not 
quite,  as  triumphantly,  to  the  processes  and  the  dealings  with 


APPENDIX.  467 

Scripture  which  Trinitarians  are  compelled  to  pursue  in  order 
to  get  out  of  it  the  component  parts  of  the  doctrine.  We  pro- 
nounce these  processes  unreasonable,  violent,  and  unfair.  They 
are  a  reproach  upon  the  science  of  Biblical  criticism.  The  dis- 
locations, transpositions,  glosses,  and  hard-drawn  inferences  and 
artificial  reconstructions  which  make  the  Scriptures  yield  up  the 
component  parts  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  do  not  approve 
themselves  to  us.  Sometimes  young  school-children,  who  in- 
herit a  championship  of  Unitarianism  and  Trinitarianism  from 
their  parents,  will  try  these  dislocated  texts,  sentences,  half-sen- 
tences, and  phrases  on  each  other.  The  vanquished  champion 
of  one  day  will  ask  of  parent  or  Sunday-school  teacher  a  rebut- 
ting text  for  the  next  day.  The  Orthodox  child  will  quote  the 
assertion  of  Jesus,  UI  and  my  Father  are  one."  His  opponent 
will  meet  him  with  the  petition  of  Jesus  to  his  Father,  that  his 
disciples  may  be  one,  in  precisely  the  same  way  and  sense. 
Now  we  had  better  leave  this  sort  of  doctrinal  tactics  to  chil- 
dren. It  may  be  well  for  grown  men  to  remember  that  the  com- 
ponent parts  of  a  house  will  not  make  a  house  unless  they  are 
orderly  disposed. 

The  next  objection  advanced  against  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity is,  that  the  three  texts  on  which  Trinitarians  would  most 
readily  seize  for  its  vindication,  and  which  the  most  ignorant 
and  obstinate  among  them  insist  upon  bringing  forward,  are  dis- 
credited for  such  a  use  by  all  competent  scholars.  The  fact  is 
most  significant,  as  it  proves  that  the  Scriptures  have  been  tam- 
pered with  for  the  sake  of  interpolating  testimony  to  a  doctrine 
which  was  evidently  recognized  to  be  in  need  of  testimony.  My 
critic  replies  thus  :  — 

"  Mr.  Ellis  further  objects  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  that 
4  the  texts  which  are  quoted  to  support  it  are  peculiarly  embar- 
rassed with  doubts  and  questions  as  to  authenticity,  exactness 
of  rendering,  and  signification.'  He  instances  three  prominent 
proof-texts,  viz.  1  John  v.  7,  2  Tim.  iii.  16,  and  Acts  xx. 
28,  which  have  been  regarded  as  of  a  doubtful  character.  We 
have  no  time  or  need  to  go  into  a  consideration  of  these  vexed 
passages  here.  The  history  of  them  proves  that,  in  some  of  the 
early  controversies  respecting  the  Trinity  and  the  person  of 
Christ,  they   have  been  tampered  with,  either  by  the  Arians, 


468  APPENDIX. 

or  the  Orthodox,  or  by  both.  We  do  not  abandon  the  common 
reading  of  these  passages,  more  especially  of  the  last  two.  Nei- 
ther are  we  disposed  pertinaciously  to  contend  for  it.  They 
may  be  held  in  abeyance,  for  further  light,  without  at  all  endan- 
gering the  Scriptural  support  of  the  doctrines  which  they  seem 
to  teach." 

On  this  reply  I  have  only  to  remark  upon  the  evident  reluc- 
tance of  the  writer  to  admit  the  full  force  and  pertinence  of  the 
objection.  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have  had  this  cumulative 
evidence  which  impeaches  the  Scriptural  character  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  met  with  a  little  more  candor.  Trinitarians 
are  fond  of  charging  Unitarians  with  interpreting  Scripture  un- 
der a  bias,  of  bringing  prejudiced  opinions  to  it,  and  of  explain- 
ing away  its  manifest  teachings.  The  charge  seems  to  us  almost 
ludicrously  self-convicting,  in  view  of  the  stages  of  pleading 
through  which  my  critic  passes.  I  must  remind  him  that  the 
text  1  John  v.  7  has  no  part  in  "  the  early  controversies  re- 
specting the  Trinity."  It  did  not  exist  then.  As  to  "holding 
in  abeyance  for  further  light "  these  texts  which  the  best  Ortho- 
dox authorities  agree  in  surrendering,  we  must  answer,  that  life 
is  too  short  for  it,  and  the  claims  of  progress  will  not  admit  of  it. 
The  course  recommended  by  my  critic  seems  to  me  rather  like 
holding  light  itself  in  abeyance. 

The  next  paragraph  offered  by  my  critic  contains  a  little  word- 
play, of  which  he  and  my  readers  shall  mutually  have  the  benefit, 
so  far  as  the  copying  it  here  can  avail :  — 

"  Mr.  Ellis  objects,  that '  the  Scriptures  bear  a  positive  testimony 
against  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  by  insisting  upon  the  absolute 
unity  of  God.'  But  does  not  Mr.  Ellis  know,  that  the  unity  of 
God  is  an  essential  part  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  — so  essen- 
tial, that  there  can  be  no  Trinity  (Tri-unity)  without  it  ?  Trini- 
tarians are  not  Tri-theists.  They  hold  to  the  unity  of  God  as 
firmly,  and  would  contend  for  it  (if  denied)  as  earnestly,  as 
Unitarians  themselves.  How  then  can  the  testimony  of  Scrip- 
ture as  to  the  unity  of  God  be  regarded  as  a  positive  testimony 
against  the  Trinity  ?  " 

All  that  I  need  say  in  answer  to  the  question  here  asked  is, 
that  the  Scriptures,  by  insisting  in  variety  of  phrase  upon  the 
single,  undivided  unity  of  God,  and  by  affirming,  not  only  that 


APPENDIX.  469 

there  is  One  God,  but  that  God  is  One,  and  by  not  containing  a 
single  assertion  of  the  Trinity,  do  give  a  most  emphatic  testi- 
mony against  the  latter  doctrine. 

The  following,  though  it  seems  to  open  with  the  promise  of 
rebutting  a  statement  of  mine,  leaves  it  valid. 

"  Finally,  Mr.  Ellis  '  objects  to  this  doctrine,  that  we  know  its 
origin  to  have  been,  not  in  the  Scriptures,  but  outside  of  them. 
It  was  the  Greek  philosophy  of  Alexandria,  and  not  the  Hebrew 
or  Christian  theology  of  Jerusalem,  that  gave  it  birth.'  To  all 
this  we  have  only  time  now  to  reply,  that  we  know,  or  we  think 
we  know,  precisely  the  opposite  of  what  is  here  stated.  We  can 
clearly  trace  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  in  its  essential  features 
and  elements,  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testa- 
ments, and  in  the  writings  of  the  fathers  who  preceded  the  school 
at  Alexandria.  Plato  taught  no  doctrine  at  all  resembling  the 
Christian  Trinity.  We  speak  advisedly  on  this  subject.  The 
New  Platonics  of  the  second  century  after  Christ,  in  their  zeal 
for  a  general  comprehension,  corrupted  the  Scripture  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,  and  introduced  their  corruptions  into  the  Church, 
and  in  so  doing  they  laid  a  foundation  for  the  disputes  and 
controversies  of  the  next  five  hundred  years.  What  I  have 
here  said  is  a  true  historical  statement,  which  I  am  prepared  to 
vindicate,  whenever  called  to  it  in  the  providence  of  God." 

That  my  learned  opponent  thinks  that  he  "  can  clearly  trace 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  in  its  essential  features  and  elements, 
in  the  Scriptures,"  I  have  no  doubt.  But  that  would  not  prove 
that  the  doctrine  came  into  the  faith  of  its  first  believers  through 
the  Scriptures.  The  school  at  Alexandria  and  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  both  had  the  same  fathers.  Jewish  Platonists 
were  the  most  efficient  corrupters  of  Christian  doctrine  through 
this  world's  philosophy.  Any  one  who  has  tried  to  read  Philo 
has  learned  a  lesson  on  this  point  which  he  can  never  forget. 
Though  the  story  in  Eusebius,  that  Philo  was  acquainted  with 
the  Apostle  Peter,  and  that  of  Photius,  that  Philo  was  a  Christian, 
are  not  reliable,  there  is  evidence  enough  that  some  of  the  Chris- 
tian fathers  were  readers  and  copiers  of  Philo.  My  critic  says, 
truly  enough,  that  Plato  taught  no  doctrine  at  all  resembling  the 
Christian  Trinity.  But  still  he  and  his  followers  speculated  about 
a  Trinity,  and  it  was,  as  we  firmly  believe  on  the  best  sort  of 
evidence,  —  it  was  through  them  that  a  school  of  philosophizing 
40 


470 


APPENDIX. 


Christians  were  first  misled  into  a  corruption  of  the  simplicity 
of  the  Gospel.  Every  argument,  from  the  most  elaborate  to  the 
most  superficial  in  character,  which  has  ever  passed  under  our 
notice,  in  attempted  proof  that  the  Scriptures  reveal  a  Trinity 
of  co-equal  persons  in  the  One  God,  bears  on  its  face  unmis- 
takable evidence  that  it  is  an  argument  in  behalf  of  a  precon- 
ceived and  extraneous  notion,  not  a  development  of  plain  Scrip- 
ture doctrine. 

The  summing  up  with  which  my  critic  closes  his  attempted 
refutation  of  Unitarianism  on  this  point,  is  as  follows  :  — 

"  Before  leaving  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  I  wish  to  say 
a  word  as  to  the  often  alleged  absurdity  of  it.  Without 
doubt,  the  doctrine  in  question  (or  something  like  it)  may 
be  so  stated  as  to  become  an  absurdity.  To  say  that  each 
person  in  the  Trinity  is  God,  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
they  all  are  one  God,  would  be  a  contradiction.  But  to  say 
that  each  person  in  the  Trinity  is  in  some  sense  God,  and 
that  in  some  other  sense  they  all  constitute  one  God,  is  no 
contradiction.  Here  is  one  tree,  one  trunk,  made  up  of  three 
distinct  and  equal  branches.  Now  each  of  those  branches  is 
in  some  sense  a  tree,  having  bark,  sap,  wood,  leaves,  and  all 
the  attributes  of  a  tree  ;  and  yet  each  of  the  branches  is  not 
a  tree,  in  the  sense  in  which  they  all  constitute  one  tree.  '  In 
this  tree,  as  in  a  great  many  other  things,  there  are  three  in 
one,  and  one  in  three  ;  and  yet  there  is  no  contradiction,  no 
absurdity.  And  just  so  —  in  so  far  as  divine  things  can  be 
illustrated  by  created  things  —  in  respect  to  the  Trinity.  Prop- 
erly conceived  of,  and  properly  stated,  it  involves  no  absurdity. 
For  aught  that  any  created  being  can  show  to  the  contrary,  it 
may  he  true ;  and  as  God  has  so  revealed  to  us  the  mode  of  his 
existence,  we  are  bound  to  believe  that  it  is  true. 

"  As  to  the  quo  moolo  of  the  Trinity,  or  the  manner  in  which  the 
three  are  one,  and  the  one  three,  here  lies  the  whole  mystery  of 
the  subject.  A  thousand  questions  may  be  asked  with  regard  to 
this  point,  which  no  human  being  can  answer  ;  which  it  is  pre- 
sumptuous to  try  to  answer.  But  as  to  the  fact  of  the  three 
personal  distinctions  in  the  one  undivided  essence  of  the  God- 
head, we  have  a  divine  revelation,  and  consequently  ought  to 
have  no  doubt." 

We  may  gratefully  recognize  it  as  one  among  the  approved 
results  of  a  long  controversy,  if  it  be  that  a  Professor  in  an 
Orthodox  Theological  School  has  said  in  those  paragraphs  the 


APPENDIX.  471 

best  that  he  feels  able  to  say  in  the  way  of  apology  for  a  meta- 
physical dogma.  We  may  pertinently  ask,  Why  perplex  the 
simple  Christian  faith  with  such  a  confessedly  undefinable,  in- 
explicable dogma  ?  What  possible  connection  can  be  indicated 
between  the  revelation  of  God's  will  to  man,  and  the  obscuration 
of  the  Oneness  of  God  by  an  inconceivable  distinction  of  person- 
alities in  his  essence  ?  Why  should  the  subtilty  of  metaphysics 
make  such  a  perplexing  theory  to  lie  at  the  basis  of  a  knowledge 
of  God's  will  ?  We  deny,  as  positively  as  our  opponents  assert, 
that  "  revelation  discloses  the  fact  of  the  three  personal  dis- 
tinctions in  the  one  undivided  essence  of  the  Godhead."  We 
find  no  such  fact  disclosed  in  our  Bibles.  We  maintain  that 
it  is  a  direct  contradiction  to  affirm  "  that  each  person  in  the 
Trinity  is  in  some  sense  God,  and  that  in  some  other  sense  they 
all  constitute  one  God."  The  contradiction  is  nothing  for  which 
Scripture  is  responsible,  but  it  is  a  device  of  human  brains.  The 
critic  ventures  on  the  perilous  attempt  at  illustration.  He  tells 
us,  that  of  a  composite  thing,  a  thing  composed  of  parts,  we  may 
ascribe  the  quality  and  attributes  of  the  whole  to  each  part.  We 
say,  no.  A  branch  is  not  a  tree  in  any  sense,  and  no  trickery 
with  language  will  justify  any  one  in  calling  it  so.  A  family 
may  be  composed  of  a  father,  a  mother,  and  a  son,  but  no  usage 
of  words  will  allow  us  to  speak  of  either  of  those  three  parties  as 
in  any  sense  a  family.  My  critic  insists  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  "  properly  conceived  of,  and  properly  stated,  involves  no 
absurdity."  But  what  is  a  proper  conception  of  it  ?  And  what 
is  a  proper  statement  of  it  ?  Before  puzzling  our  thoughts  with 
the  problem  "  as  to  the  quo  modo,  the  manner  in  which  the  three 
are  one,  and  the  one  three,"  we  ask  for  a  distinct  assertion 
from  revelation  of  the  fact  itself.  There  is  no  such  assertion, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  Bible,  of  any  such  enigma. 
Our  own  opinion  is,  that  the  presumption  is  not  on  the  part  of 
those  who  try  to  solve  the  enigma,  but  of  those  who  have 
invented  it,  and  who  still  insist  upon  perverting  the  Scripture 
doctrine  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Father,  the  spiritual  operation 
of  God's  spirit,  and  the  subordination  of  Christ  to  God. 


472  APPENDIX. 


IX. 


UNITARIANISM   ON    THE  NATURE,  RANK,  AND   OFFICES 
OF   CHRIST. 

Passing  now  to  the  discussion  of  the  point  in  controversy 
concerning  Christ's  nature,  my  critic  makes  many  specifications 
of  apparent  reply,  but  does  not  address  a  single  word  even  of 
recognition  to  the  thesis  towards  which  I  argue.  I  begin  my 
article  on  page  107,  with  the  plainest  possible  announcement, 
repeated  from  page  48,  of  the  view  to  which  Unitarianism 
here  commits  itself.  That  is  not,  as  I  expressly  say,  to  any 
definition  of  Christ's  nature,  nor  to  any  denial  of  his  Divinity, 
nor  to  any  bold  attempt  to  measure  the  distance  between 
him  and  God  in  one  direction,  or  between  him  and  man  in  an- 
other direction.  It  would  seem  difficult  to  express  in  more  in- 
telligible terms  than  are  used  in  the  following  sentence  the 
sole  point  to  which  I  address  myself;  namely,  that  Unitarians 
maintain  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  presented  to  us  in  the  New 
Testament  as  possessing  the  underived  honors  of  the  Godhead, 
as  claiming  by  himself  and  by  his  Apostles  the  supreme  prerog- 
ative of  Deity,  and  therefore  as  an  object  of  worship  and  prayer, 
or  of  our  ultimate  religious  dependence.  Plain  and  prominent 
as  my  statement  is,  and  so  worded  as  to  comprehend  all  the 
essential  conditions  of  Unitarian  doctrine,  my  critic  averts  his 
attention  entirely  from  it,  and  turns  to  the  usual  strain  of  Or- 
thodox pleading  from  disjointed  texts  for  the  sake  of  mystifying, 
rather  than  elucidating,  the  Scriptures.  I  must  object  to  this 
method  of  dealing  with  something  other  than  my  argument.  I 
find  in  his  criticisms  two  incidental  Scripture  quotations,  that 
might  be  intended  to  meet  my  statement,  though  they  are  not 
addressed  to  it.  The  first  of  these  quotations  is  from  Revela- 
tion i.  8  :  "I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the 
ending,  which  is,  and  which  was,  and  which  is  to  come,  the 
Almighty."  He  says,  "  When  we  hear  Christ  speaking  these 
words,  we  cannot  doubt  that  he  speaks  as  God."  But  waiving 
the  possible  question  whether  Christ  or  God  is  represented  as 
speaking  these  words,  we  find  the  form   of  speech    twice  re- 


APPENDIX.  473 

peated  as  by  Christ,  with  the  omission  of  the  words  "  the  Al- 
mighty." (xxi.  6  and  xxii.  13.)  There  is  a  very  remarkable  fact 
in  connection  with  the  use  of  these  terms  of  speech  which  my 
critic  would  have  done  well  to  note.  John  says,  that  he  "  fell 
down  to  worship  "  the  Beingwho  spoke  these  words,  and  was 
repulsed  with  the  counsel :  "  See  thou  do  it  not ;  for  I  am  thy 
fellow-servant ;  worship  God."  (Rev.  xxii.  9.)  The  other  quo- 
tation is  from  the  words  of  Isaiah :  "  His  name  shall  be  called 
the  Wonderful,  the  Counsellor,  the  Mighty  God,  the  Everlasting 
Father,"  &c.  for  the  proper  rendering  of  which  the  best  Or- 
thodox lexicons  will  afford  all  the  necessary  means,  though  they 
can  hardly  be  regarded  as  words  in  which  Christ  for  himself,  or 
the  Apostles  for  him,  claim  the  underived  honors  of  Deity.  And 
it  Is  from  these  quotations  that  I  am  to  consider  my  plain  po- 
sition as  refuted  !  Will  not  all  the  teachings  of  Christ  himself 
afford  us  a  single  passap^  in  which  he  presents  himself  as  the 
object  of  our  worship  and  ultimate  dependence  ?  No  !  For 
one  such  passage  would  be  manifestly  inconsistent  with  his  re- 
iterated and  emphatic  assertion  of  his  subjection  and  subordi- 
nation to  God,  his  reiterated  and  emphatic  assertion,  that  not.  he, 
but  God,  his  God  and  our  God,  his  Father  and  our  Father,  is 
the  object  of  our  homage,  worship,  and  ultimate  dependence. 
When  Christ  says  that  we  shall  ask  him  nothing,  but  shall  ask 
in  his  name,  how  are  we  to  understand  him  ?  When  he  says, 
that  of  an  hour  and  an  event  in  the  future  he  is  ignorant,  how 
else  than  by  the  blankest  sophistry  can  it  be  alleged  that  he 
claims  the  prerogatives  of  Deity  ?  It  cannot  be  replied,  that  he 
is  then  speaking  as  a  man,  as  but  a  part  of  himself,  for  this 
would  be  trifling,  as  no  man  need  disclaim  the  prerogative  of 
omniscience. 

Disappointed  as  I  am,  that  my  critic  should  so  wink  out  of 
sight  the  position  on  which  I  build  the  whole  of  my  argument,  I 
must  follow  him  on  some  subordinate  issues.  I  have  not  argued 
against  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  for  my  own  belief  is  that  Christ  is 
Divine,  that  God  has  imparted  to  him  Divinity.  1  have  asked 
for  a  single  word  of  proof  that  he,  or  his  Apostles  for  him,  de- 
mand our  worship.  One  sentence  would  have  satisfied  me  on 
that  point,  but  the  New  Testament  cannot  furnish  one.  I  re- 
40* 


474  APPENDIX. 

member  very  well,  that,  when  I  was  composing  my  article,  I 
hesitated  long  upon  the  doubt,  whether  I  had  better  attempt  any 
statement  of  the  varieties  of  speculation,  conception,  and  belief 
as  to  the  nature  and  rank  of  Christ  held  by  Unitarians  as  sec- 
ondary to  their  essential,  Scriptural  tenet  that  he  was  wholly 
subject  to  and  dependent  on  God,  referring  to  the  gift  and  endow- 
ment of  God  all  that  he  was  and  said  and  did,  as  one  who  could 
do  nothing  of  himself,  but  had  received  his  commandment  from 
the  Father.  The  essential  belief  of  Unitarians  is  admirably 
expressed,  both  on  its  positive  and  its  negative  side,  by  a  plain 
statement  of  St.  Paul,  to  which  it  would  delight  us  to  see  our 
Orthodox  friends  do  justice.  It  is  found  in  1  Cor.  xv.  27,  28  : 
"  All  things  are  put  under  Christ ;  but  it  is  manifest  that  He  is 
excepted  which  did  put  all  things  under  him.  And  when'  all 
things  shall  be  subdued  unto  him,  then  shall  the  Son  also  him- 
self be  subject  unto  Him  that  put  all  things  under  him,  that  God 
may  be  all  in  all."  Knowing  very  well  that,  after  assuring  the 
Scriptural  character  of  their  faith  on  this  point,  Unitarians  yielded 
to  the  speculative  instinct  which  prompted  them  to  form  some 
conception  of  the  rank  and  nature  of  the  being  whom  the  Su- 
preme had  constituted  his  vicegerent,  and  knowing  also  that 
their  speculations  covered  a  wide  range,  I  hesitated,  as  I  have 
said,  whether  it  were  expedient  to  refer  to  them  at  all.  I  did, 
however,  devote  a  very  small  space  to  them.  Of  course  there 
are  extreme  views  among  them,  and  these  extreme  views  are 
mutually  inconsistent,  and  not  reconcilable  with  those  which 
lie  between  them.  Of  these  my  critic  allows  himself  to  say, 
that  "  Unitarians  place  Christ  anywhere  they  please  in  the  rank 
of  derived  or  created  existence."  If  he  will  allow  me  to  speak 
in  behalf  of  brethren  with  some  of  whom  I  agree,  and  with 
some  of  whom  I  differ,  I  will  venture  to  suggest,  that  none  of 
them  would  claim  a  right  to  place  Christ  where  they  please. 
They  feel  at  least  some  measure  of  the  honest  and  earnest  in- 
terest of  Orthodox  persons  in  trying  to  reduce  the  terms  applied 
to  Christ  to  a  consistent  and  exhaustive  theory  concerning  him. 
Precluded  from  availing  themselves  of  the  conclusion  to  which 
the  Orthodox  leap  by  skipping  over  all  the  passages  in  which 
not  merely  "  the  human  nature  of  Christ,"  but  Christ  himself,  is 


APPENDIX.  475 

subordinated  to  God,  they  are  left  to  construct  a  theory  that 
shall  start  from  that  as  a  fixed  fact.  They  insist,  however,  that 
Christian  truth  is  concerned  with  Christ  in  his  offices,  rather  than 
made  dependent  upon  any  speculative  view  of  his  nature  or 
rank  in  creation.  They  affirm  that  the  Scriptures  speak  to  us 
of  the  being,  will,  and  attributes  of  Jehovah,  and  present  an  es- 
pecial mediator  between  us  and  him  under  the  title  of  Christ,  or 
the  Son.  It  is  with  this  Christ  the  Mediator  that  we  have  to  do. 
We  should  regard  it  as  but  poor  presumption  to  undertake  to 
limit  the  gifts  or  prerogatives  which  God  may  impart  to  him, 
but  we  do  insist  that,  by  the  clearest  Scripture  testimony,  all 
that  Christ  was,  was  of  the  bestowal  and  endowment  of  God. 
Of  his  own  self  he  could  do  nothing.  This  does  not  mean  that 
of  his  own  self  in  another  or  duplex  sense  he  could  do  every- 
thing. The  passages  of  Scripture  which  lead  the  Orthodox  to 
assign  to  Christ  a  double  nature,  lead  the  Unitarians  to  insist, 
that,  like  any  other  creature  of  God,  he  was  nothing  of  himself, 
while,  through  the  special  work  and  purpose  of  God  in  him,  he 
was  so  endowed  as  to  be  a  sharer  of  the  Divine  counsels.  Not 
a  single  sentence  or  line  do  we  find  in  the  Bible,  the  fair  and 
full  meaning  of  which  is  not  accepted  and  exhausted  by  the 
simple  statement  of  the  august  truth,  that  Christ  "  received  from 
God  the  Father  honor  and  glory,  when  there  came  such  a  voice 
to  him  from  the  excellent  glory,  ■  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased.'  " 

I  made  but  a  passing  recognition,  in  a  few  sentences,  of  the 
extreme  variations  in  the  speculative  opinions  held  by  Unitarians 
as  to  the  nature  and  rank  of  Christ.  A  cool,  rationalizing  con- 
ception of  him,  and  a  fervent,  devout,  and  loving  reliance  upon 
him,  must  of  course  lead  to  extremely  different  views  of  him. 
My  critic  rightly  infers,  though  from  no  direct  statement  of  my 
own  in  that  connection,  that  I  hold  the  highest  possible  view  of 
the  nature  and  the  rank  of  Christ  that  is  consistent  with  his 
subjection  to  the  Being  who  sent  him  into  the  world,  and  to 
whom  he  prayed.  But  after  quoting  a  few  of  my  sentences, 
which  present  the  extreme  views  of  Unitarians,  and  bringing 
into  prominence  those  which  define  the  loftiest  and  most  rever- 
ing conceptions  of  Christ,  my  critic  remarks  upon  some  sen- 
tences which  he  copies  from  pages  144,  146,  and  147. 


476  APPENDIX. 

"  And  I  would  inquire,  first  of  all,  whether  Mr.  Ellis  has  re- 
flected on  the  inherent  absurdity  of  some  of  the  expressions 
above  quoted.  If  Christ  is  not  infinite  in  his  nature  and  per- 
fections, then  he  is  finite.  If  he  is  not  the  Eternal,  then  he  is 
subject  to  the  limitations  of  time.  And  certainly,  between  the 
infinite  and  the  finite,  the  eternal  and  the  temporal,  there  can  be 
no  comparison.  There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  created  in- 
telligence being  almost  equal  in  essence  with  the  Supreme.  A 
created  being  may  hold  rank  above  all  other  orders  of  created 
beings,  but  he  cannot  '  touch  upon  the  prerogatives  of  Deity.' 
'  The  awful  vacuum  between  the  loftiest  angelic  natures  and  the 
Supreme,  has  now  a  radiant  occupant,  who  Jills  the  whole  of  it.'' 
Is  this  conceivable  ?  Is  it  possible  ?  ,  The  truth  is,  if  Christ  is 
not  God,  he  is  infinitely  less  than  God.  Between  him  and  God 
there  is  no  comparison.  There  can  he  none.  Those,  therefore, 
who  deny  the  proper  divinity  of  Christ  —  however  high  they  may 
exalt  him  in  the  scale  of  finite  intelligence  —  do  really  pull  him 
down  an  infinite  distance.  They  may  think  to  honor  him  ; 
they  may  not  intend  to  degrade  him  ;  but  (if  he  is  what  we  be- 
lieve him  to  be)  they  do  degrade  him,  and  that  infinitely.  How- 
ever good  their  intentions  may  be,  they  cannot  help  it." 

I  would  answer,  that  all  the  expressions  which  I  have  used  as 
employed  by  Unitarians  for  the  exaltation  of  Christ  are  relieved 
of  any  "  inherent  absurdity  "  the  moment  they  are  referred  to 
the  exhaustive  summing  up  of  the  Apostle  in  these  words  :  "  It 
pleased  the  Father  that  in  him  should  all  fulness  dwell "  (Col.  i. 
19)  ;  the  work  which  God  "  wrought  in  Christ  when  he  raised 
him  from  the  dead,  and  set  him  at  his  own  right  hand  in  the 
heavenly  places,  far  above  all  principality,  and  power,  and 
might,  and  dominion,  and  every  name  that  is  named,  not  only 
in  this  world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come ;  and  hath  put 
all  things  under  his  feet,  and  gave  him  to  be  the  head  over  all 
things  to  the  Church."  (Eph.  i.  20-22.)  "Wherefore  God 
hath  highly  exalted  him,  and  given  him  a  name  which  is  above 
every  name."  (Philip,  ii.  9.)  Now  in  these  and  many  other  pas- 
sages the  loftiest  titles  and  prerogatives  are  assigned  to  Christ, 
to  the  being  presented  to  us  in  the  New  Testament  as  our  Medi- 
ator, who  came  to  lead  us,  reconciled,  to  God.  And  all  these 
exalted  honors  are  attached  to  Christ  as  derived  gifts.  They 
are  never  spoken  of  as  self-possessed,  nor  as  given  by  one  of 
his  natures  to  the  other  of  his  natures,  but  as  bestowed  upon 


APPENDIX.  477 

him  by  the  sovereign  pleasure  of  the  One  Supreme  God.  Some 
Unitarians,  and,  if  it  is  proper  to  add,  the  writer  is  one  of  the 
class,  love  to  gather  from  the  New  Testament  all  these  lofty  and 
transcendent  terms  of  Divine  honor  attached  to  Christ,  and  to 
fashion  from  them  such  conceptions  as  I  have  sought  to  express, 
and  on  which  my  critic  comments  as  above.  Now  if  he  finds  no 
difficulty  in  conceiving  of  the  Messiah  as  the  Supreme  God,  I 
am  certainly  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  he  can  stumble  at  any 
of  the  expressions  which  I  have  used.  Will  he  question  the  abil- 
ity of  God  to  communicate,  impart,  transfer,  or  divide  any  of  his 
prerogatives  to  Christ,  to  make  Christ  as  "  his  fellow  "  almost  his 
equal,  to  allow  him  to  touch  upon  the  prerogatives  of  Deity,  and 
to  fill  the  whole  space  between  himself  and  the  loftiest  angelic 
nature  ?  My  critic  may  stumble  at  these  views,  but  it  is  a  silly 
trifling  with  the  old  bugbear  frights  of  polemics  to  pretend  that 
Unitarians,  in  trying  to  fill  out  the  Scriptural  delineations  of 
Christ,  "  degrade  him  infinitely."  For  I  must  remind  my  critic 
again,  that  Unitarians  have  a  God  beyond  and  above  his  Messiah, 
and  that  we  still  connect  with  the  Supreme  his  supremacy. 

I  have  in  these  remarks  anticipated  the  answer  to  be  given  to 
the  next  two  queries  of  my  critic,  as  follows  :  — 

"  Let  it  be  inquired,  secondly,  whether  the  language  above 
quoted  does  not  present  us  with  two  Gods,  —  not  two  persons  in 
the  one  Godhead,  —  but  two  Gods.  'Our  doctrine  gives  to  us 
the  same  God  whom  they  worship,  and  another  being,  —  yes,  a 
Divine  being  besides.'  '  The  awful  vacuum  between  the  loftiest 
angelic  natures  and  the  Supreme  has  now  an  occupant  who  Jills 
the  whole  oj  it.'  Besides  the  Eternal  Father,  there  is  another  be- 
ing, '  the  sharer  of  his  throne,  his  counsellor  and  companion' 
'touching,'  in  point  of  perfection,  'upon  the  prerogatives  of 
Deity.'  If  here  are  not  two  Gods,  I  hardly  know  in  what  lan- 
guage such  a  doctrine  could  be  exhibited.  What  have  Trinita- 
rians ever  written  that  was  so  palpably  inconsistent  with  the 
unity  of  God  as  this. 

"  But  I  must  inquire,  thirdly,  how  the  language  above  used 
can  be  reconciled  with  the  testimony  of  Scripture  as  to  the 
proper  humanity  of  Christ.  Our  Saviour  is  expressly  called  a 
man  more  than  fifty  times  in  the  New  Testament.  He  is  repre- 
sented as  possessing  all  the  sinless  affections  and  infirmities  of  a 
man.  He  '  grew  in  wisdom  and  in  stature.'  He  was  hungry, 
thirsty,  weary,  and  tempted  ;  he  ate,  drank,  and  slept ;  he  ap- 


478 


APPENDIX. 


peared,  lived,  suffered,  and  died  as  a  man.  In  short,  we  have 
as  much  evidence  from  Scripture  that  Christ  was  a  man,  as  we 
have  that  Peter,  James,  and  John  were  men,  or  that  any  human 
being  is  referred  to  or  spoken  of  in  the  Bible. 

"  But  a  mere  human  body  does  not  make  a  man.  It  requires 
also  a  human  soul ;  not  that  pre-existent,  super-angelic,  god- 
like intelligence  of  which  Mr.  Ellis  speaks,  —  but  a  human  soul, 
'  made  in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin.'  Without 
such  a  soul,  Christ  could  not  be  a  man ;  and  the  fulness  of 
Scripture  testimony,  as  to  the  fact  of  his  humanity,  is  falsified." 

Supposing  my  critic  to  be  as  well  able  as  I  am  to  answer  his 
question,  whether  the  Unitarian  view  does  not  present  us  with 
"  two  Gods,"  I  leave  him  to  find  relief  from  his  perplexity  here 
without  my  help.  As  to  "  the  proper  humanity  of  Christ,"  we 
receive  that  as  the  basis,  the  medium,  the  manifestation,  through 
which  God  wrought  his  work  in  Christ.  "  Christ  was  found  in 
fashion  as  a  man."  This  is  all  that  the  Scriptures  reveal  to  us 
about  the  matter,  and  to  inquire  below  or  beyond  it  is  to  inquire 
in  vain. 

To  meet  the  claims  of  candor  in  allowing  an  opponent  a  fair 
hearing  in  his  own  words,  I  copy  the  following  long  extract  in 
continuation  of  his  comments. 

"  I  have  spoken  of  the  abundant  Scripture  testimony  as  to  the 
fact  of  Christ's  humanity.  This  testimony  is  equally  explicit, 
and  scarcely  less  abundant,  as  to  the  fact  of  his  Divinity.  The 
names,  the  attributes,  the  works,  and  the  worship  of  the  Su- 
preme Being  are  all,  in  Scripture,  ascribed  to  Christ.  In  fact, 
it  is  as  easy  to  prove,  from  the  language  of  Scripture,  that  Christ 
is  God,  as  it  is  to  prove  that  the  Father  is  God,  or  that  there  is 
any  God  at  all. 

"  A  few  of  the  Scripture  proofs  of  the  proper  Divinity  of 
Christ  Mr.  Ellis  runs  over,  disposing  of  .them  in  the  briefest 
manner,  much  as  Unitarians  generally  have  done  before  him. 
It  is  painfully  evident,  from  the  manner  in  which  these  passages 
are  disposed  of  by  Unitarians,  that  no  additional  amount  of 
Scripture  testimony  would  be  likely  to  satisfy  them.  As  these 
texts  are  explained  away,  others  might  be.  Indeed,  the  same 
glosses  and  interpretations  that  would  take  the  Divinity  of  Christ 
out  of  the  Bible,  would  take  it  out  of  the  Athanasian  Creed,  or 
the  Assembly's  Catechism,  or  any  other  Orthodox  formula  of 
doctrine. 

"  But  if  Christ  is  both  God  and  man,  —  if  he  speaks,  and  is 


APPENDIX.  479 

spoken  of,  in  both  these  characters  in  Scripture,  Mr.  Ellis  thinks 
that*  in  all  fairness,  we  ought  to  be  admonished  of  this  important 
fact.  And  so  in  truth  we  are.  We  are  admonished  of  it.  The 
Scriptures  set  Christ  before  us  as  both  God  and  man  ;  and  now, 
when  we  hear  him  speaking  to  us,  we  can  easily  decide  as  to 
the  character  in  which  he  speaks,  from  the  tenor  of  his  words. 
When  we  hear  him  saying,  i  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful, 
even  unto  death,'  —  we  cannot  doubt  that  he  speaks  as  man. 
And  when  we  hear  him  saying,  *  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the 
first  and  the  last,  which  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come,  the  Al- 
mighty,' —  we  can  as  little  doubt  that  he  speaks  as  God. 

"  It  is  further  said,  that,  of  the  whole  doctrine  of  Christ, 
nothing  is  more  plainly  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures  than  his  de- 
pendence on  the  Father,  and  his  inferiority  and  subordination 
to  him.  And  now,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  our  Unitarian 
friends,  we  accept  this  statement  fully.  We  believe  in  Christ's 
inferiority  to  the  Father.  As  man,  he  was  essentially  and  in- 
finitely inferior.  And  as  the  constituted  mediator  between  God 
and  men,  he  was,  and  is,  subordinate  to  the  Father.  He  taught 
what  he  was  appointed  to  teach  ;  he  did  what  he  was  appointed 
to  do  ;  he  suffered  what  he  was  appointed  to  suffer  ;  and  all  this 
in  perfect  consistency  with  his  possessing  a  Divine  nature,  in 
which  ■  he  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God.' 

"  Again,  it  is  said,  that,  by  making  Christ  God,  we  c  confound 
him  with  the  Father ' ;  we  make  him  c  identical  with  God  '  ; 
and  thus  '  his  prayers  must  be  construed  as  soliloquies  ' ;  and  in 
his  intercessions  we  have  *  God  interceding  with  God.'  '  We 
are  told  of  a  covenant  between  two  persons,  when,  in  fact,  there 
is  but  one  ' ;  and  of  '  a  mediator  between  two  parties,  who  is 
himself  one  of  those  parties.'  All  this,  and  much  more  like  it, 
is  based  on  the  groundless  assumption,  that  Trinitarians  make 
no  distinctions  in  the  Godhead.  But  do  not  Unitarians  know 
that  we  make  such  distinctions,  essential  and  eternal  distinc- 
tions ?  Do  they  not  know  that  the  Bible  makes  them  ?  •  In  the 
beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and 
the  Word  was  God,  the  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God.'' 
1  Glorify  thou  me  with  thine  own  self,  with  the  glory  which  I 
had  with  thee  before  the  world  was.'  The  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  the  doctrine  of  three  personal  distinctions  in  one  God. 
The  Son  is  not  identical  with  the  Father,  nor  the  Father  with 
the  Son,  nor  the  Spirit  with  either  the  Father  or  Son.  In  the 
Scriptures,  the  Son  in  his  Divine  nature  often  addresses  the 
Father,  and  the  Father  the  Son.  l  Thy  throne,  O  God,  is  for 
ever  and  ever.'  *  Glorify  thou  me,'  &c,  as  in  the  passage  above 
quoted. 

"  Mr.  Ellis  has  some  strange  misconceptions  of  the  Trinitarian 


480 


APPENDIX. 


doctrine,  such  as  that  it  •  represents  Christ  to  us  as  a  fractional 
part  of  the  Godhead.'  We  never  before  learned  that  a  spirit  — 
not  even  a  human  spirit,  much  less  the  Divine — could  be  di- 
vided into  parts.  Why  should  any  Theist  indulge  in  such  ma- 
terializing conceptions  of  the  Godhead  ?  " 

These  suggestions,  in  the  usual  strain  of  Orthodox  special 
pleading,  are  equally  familiar  and  inconclusive  to  Unitarians. 
Most  of  what  can  be  called  argument  in  these 'paragraphs  will 
be  found  to  have  been  anticipated  in  the  essay  that  is  under 
criticism.  As  to  the  assertions  made  by  my  critic,  they  are 
easily  disposed  of.  There  is  a  great  difference  between  the 
Divinity  of  Christ  and  the  Deity  of  Christ.  "  The  names,  the 
attributes,  the  works,  and  the  worship  of  the  Supreme  Being 
are  "  not  "  all  in  Scripture  ascribed  to  Christ."  This  cool  as- 
sumption of  the  affirmative  on  a  point  on  which  my  essay  main- 
tains the  negative  side,  is  too  hasty  and  unsatisfactory.  In  a 
note  to  the  paragraph  containing  this  assumption,  my  critic 
makes  a  Scripture  quotation,  bearing  on  an  emphatic  topic  al- 
ready referred  to  by  me,  —  the  lack  of  proof  that  Christ  is  an 
object  of  our  worship.  He  quotes  Rev.  v.  13,  for  honors  paid 
"  to  the  Lamb,"  after  worship  has  been  paid  to  God.  And  this 
is  the  Scripture  testimony  to  his  broad  assertion  above  ! 

Let  the  reader  mark  the  blank  affirmation  in  the  fourth  para- 
graph, that  the  Orthodox  "  believe  in  Christ's  inferiority  to  the 
Father.  As  man,  he  was  essentially  and  infinitely  inferior !  " 
Indeed  !  This  is  a  great  admission  !  A  man  is  inferior  to  God  ! 
But  was  not  Christ  as  Christ,  in  every  manifestation  and  repre- 
sentation of  him  to  us,  inferior  to  God  ?  An  Apostle,  commend- 
ing to  us  the  lowliness  of  Christ,  says,  that,  though  divinely  fur- 
nished by  God,  "  he  did  not  grasp  at  an  equality  with  God." 
Yet  a  Theological  Professor  is  reduced  to  the  strait  of  quoting 
these  words  under  a  mistranslation  which  directly  inverts  the 
Apostle's  assertion,  to  set  aside  the  whole  Scripture  testimony 
that  Christ  —  not  as  a  man,  but  as  Christ,  the  Messiah  —  was 
not  the  Supreme  God. 

In  the  fifth  paragraph  my  critic  endeavors  to  controvert  a 
direct  argument,  by  alleging  that  it  "  is  based  on  the  ground- 
less assumption  that  Trinitarians  make  no  distinctions  in  the 
Godhead."     We  know  they  try  to  do  so.     But  to  his  question 


APPENDIX.  481 

whether  we  do  not  know  that  the  Bible  makes  them,  I  answer, 
for  one,  No ! 

As  to  the  objection  of  my  critic  founded  on  "  fractional  parts 
of  the  Godhead,"  I  have  but  to  refer  him  to  his  own  illustration 
used  above,  about  the  tree  and  its  three  branches. 

A  few  incidental  suggestions  close  the  criticisms  which  I  have 
followed  at  such  length.  I  had  asserted,  on  page  150,  as  of  the 
teaching  of  Trinitarianism,  "that  Christ  parted  with  all  that  in 
him  and  about  him  was  not  God  when  he  left  the  earth,"  &c. 
My  critic  answers  :  — 

"  Mr.  Ellis  will  be  glad  to  learn  that  Trinitarianism  teaches  no 
such  thing.  We  do  not  believe  that  it  was  ■  the  flesh  alone ' 
which  brought  '  Christ  into  sympathy  of  nature  with  us.'  He  had 
a  human  soul  as  well  as  a  human  body,  with  all  the  capacities 
and  sinless  affections  of  such  a  soul.  With  his  human  soul  and 
his  glorified  body  he  has  gone  into  the  heavens,  where  he  ever 
liveth  —  God-man  and  Mediator  — '  to  make  intercession  for  us.'  " 

I  am  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  correct  here  my  own  error, 
which  I  discovered  soon  after  the  printing  of  my  article,  in  say- 
ing what  I  did  say  about  the  teaching  of  Trinitarianism  on  this 
point.  The  sentence  was  but  a  blundering  and  inadequate  ex- 
pression of  what  was  in  my  mind.  I  object  to  the  Trinitarian 
view  of  Christ,  that  by  converting  him  into  God  it  deprives  us  of 
that  mediatorial  being  whom  the  Scriptures  present  to  us  "  in 
our  likeness." 

To  my  remarks  on  page  151,  relating  to  the  necessity  of  some 
other  views  of  Christ  than  as  an  "  Example "  or  "  Teacher," 
my  critic  replies,  that  we  are  in  danger  of  losing  him  in  those 
precious  earthly  offices  by  not  recognizing  "  his  proper  human- 
ity." I  have  copied  this  suggestion,  not  because  I  see  any  force 
in  it,  but  because  my  critic  seems  to  have  attached  importance 
to  it. 

He  concludes  with  a  comment  on  my  affirmation,  that  candid 
Orthodox  judges  of  Unitarians  will  have  less  and  less  reason  to 
say,  "  You  do  not  make  enough  of  Christ."  After  expressing  a 
devout  hope  that  this  resolution  may  be  faithfully  fulfilled,  he 
adds :  — 

"  We  cannot  utter  for  our  friend  a  better  wish,  or  a  more  im- 
portant prayer,  than  that  he  may  be  led  to  think  more  and  more 
41 


482  APPENDIX. 

of  Christ,  until  he  comes  to  the  full  realization  of  him  as  '  the 
child  born,  and  the  son  given '  ;  a  human  being  like  ourselves, 
who  is  yet  the  '  Wonderful,  the  Counsellor,  the  Mighty  God,  the 
Everlasting  Father,  the  Prince  of  Peace.'  " 

Fully  appreciating,  as  I  sincerely  hope  I  do,  the  kind,  Chris- 
tian spirit  which  prompted  this  suggestion,  I  cannot  but  as  kindly 
say  to  my  critic,  that  such  a  garbling  perversion  of  Scripture  lan- 
guage, for  the  sake  of  levelling  it  against  us,  is  especially  offen- 
sive to  our  taste,  and  utterly  ineffective  as  appeal.  A  vital,  fun- 
damental Christian  truth  ought  not  to  be  made  dependent,  even 
for  a  statement  of  it,  on  a  mistranslation  of  a  few  old  Hebrew 
words,  which  candid  Orthodox  scholars  are  as  ready  as  Unita- 
rians to  correct.  But  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  Christ  ever 
called  "  the  Mighty  God,  the  Everlasting  Father  "  ?  We  must 
not  be  robbed  of  our  Christ,  by  having  him  substituted  for  our 
God. 


X. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  ATONEMENT. 

I  had  expected  to  find  the  zeal  and  earnestness  of  my  critic 
most  effectively  brought  to  bear  upon  a  refutation  of  my  state- 
ments in  the  discussion  of  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Reconcilia- 
tion of  sinners  to  God  by  Jesus  Christ.  My  disappointment 
strengthens  with  each  reperusal  of  what  he  has  written,  as  wholly 
inadequate  to  meet  the  terms  of  the  discussion.  No  reader  of 
his  criticisms  could  learn  from  them  the  substance  either  of  my 
statements  of  the  Unitarian  view,  or  of  my  objections  to  the  Cai- 
vinistic  view,  while  the  point  of  controversy  on  which  alone  I 
lay  stress  is  not  even  recognized.  I  must  therefore  ask  my 
readers,  who  may  be  following  me  through  this  reiteration  of  my 
argument,  to  turn  back  to  a  few  references  which  I  shall  indi- 
cate. On  page  191  I  affirmed,  in  the  most  explicit  and  strong 
language   which  our  mother  tongue  affords,  the  following  :  — 


APPENDIX.  483 

"  Unitarianism  does  not  undertake  to  fathom,  or  comprehend? 
or  give  expression  to,  all  the  mysterious  influence  and  efficacy, 
and  mode  of  operation  upon  man,  and  man's  soul  and  destiny, 
of  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ,  but  is  free  to  acknowledge  an 
unexplained  and  inexplicable  agency  in  it."  Stronger  sentences 
even  than  this  are  added,  for  the  sake  of  presenting  with  all  pos- 
sible stress  my  own  conviction,  that  an  efficacy  is  ascribed  in  the 
Scriptures  to  the  mediatorial  work  of  Christ,  which,  as  to  the 
method  of  its  operation,  is  not  explained.  I  wrote:  "We  are 
cheerfully  willing  to  admit  that  God  has  comprehended  influ- 
ences in  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ,  which  are  designed  to  be 
efficaciously  felt  and  mercifully  availed  of  by  us,  without  yield- 
ing to  the  solution  of  our  understanding."  With  warm  gratitude 
I  accepted  the  noble  avowal  made  by  the  great  Bishop  Butler, 
which  I  quoted  on  page  192,  "  that  Scripture  has  not  exjriained 
how  and  in  what  particular  way  Christ's  death  is  efficacious  for 
our  pardon."  This  avowal,  from  one  of  the  sincerest  Christian 
men  and  most  clear-minded  thinkers  that  ever  accepted  Ortho- 
doxy in  some  undefined  modification  of  it,  I  regard  as  a  rebuke, 
all  the  more  effective  for  its  gentleness,  of  those  who  are  so 
ready  with  a  dogma  of  their  own  about  God's  need  of  satisfac- 
tion, or  the  demands  of  his  law.  After  these  reiterated  acknowl- 
edgments of  an  unrevealed  and  mysterious  element  in  the  me- 
diatorial work  of  Christ,  which  are  to  be  found  stated  or  in- 
timated on  many  of  my  pages,  I  defined  the  Unitarian  view  as 
looking  wholly  man-ward  for  the  operation  of  these  mysterious 
and  inexplicable  influences.  I  wrote  on  page  193,  Unitarianism 
"  maintains  that  the  death  of  Christ,  so  far  as  its  efficacy  is  dis- 
tinctly defined  [leaving  still  the  mystery  allowed  for  and  unat- 
tempted],  is  instrumental  to  our  salvation  through  its  influence 
on  the  heart  and  life  of  man,  not  through  its  vicarious  value  with 
God ;  and  also  that  revelation  does  not  acquaint  us  with  any  ob- 
stacle in  the  method  of  administration  which  God  has  established 
as  his  government,  which  prevents  his  exercising  mercy  to  the 
penitent,  except  through  the  substitution  of  a  victim  to  law." 

Unless  now  I  lack  the  faculty  of  expressing  what  is  in  my 
mind,  I  have  plainly  conveyed  a  clear  statement  of  the  Unitarian 
view,  and  have  intimated  an  objection  to  a  precise  theory  of  an 


484 


APPENDIX. 


inferential  or  constructive  character,  which  Orthodoxy  interpo- 
lates into  the  Christian  system.  This  theory  I  have  stated  on 
page  199,  as  affirming  "  that  God,  in  order  that  he  may  exer- 
cise mercy  towards  the  penitent,  requires  or  accepts  an  expia- 
tory offering  made  by  innocence  to  his  own  law."  Of  any  pos- 
sible form,  shaping,  or  announcement  of  this  theory,  which  shall 
retain  the  substance  of  it,  I  have  avowed  my  belief,  that  not  a 
single  line  or  sentence  can  be  quoted  in  testimony  from  the 
Scriptures.  The  Bible  knows  nothing  of  such  a  theory,  and  says 
nothing  about  it.  There  is  no  intimation,  not  the  faintest,  that 
an  explanation  of  what  is  left  in  mystery  about  the  efficacy  of 
the  mediatorial  work  of  Christ,  is  to  be  looked  for  in  the  direc- 
tion of  that  theory.  It  is  from  beginning  to  end,  in  every  stage 
of  it,  and  in  every  element  of  it,  a  pure  invention  of  the  human 
fancy,  and  only  by  the  hardest  and  most  ingenious  constructive- 
ness  of  inference  can  the  parts  of  it  be  picked  out  from  the 
words  and  imagery  of  disjointed  texts,  and  tessellated  into  a 
doctrinal  formula.  I  have  quoted,  page  197,  the  assertion  made 
by  Dr.  Woods,  that  "  all  the  influence  of  repentance  results 
from  the  death  of  Christ.'"  But  if  his  whole  share  in  the 
blessed  life  of  heaven,  which  we  doubt  not  that  excellent  di- 
vine is  now  enjoying,  had  been  made  to  depend  upon  his  quot- 
ing a  single  proof  of  that  statement  from  Christ,  or  an  Apostle, 
he  would  have  fallen  short  of  the  great  salvation.  To  Dr. 
Woods  applies  the  censure  which  I  have  also  quoted  from 
Bishop  Butler  (page  196)  :  u  Some  have  endeavored  to  explain 
the  efficacy  of  what  Christ  has  done  and  suffered  for  us,  be- 
yond what  the  Scripture  has  authorized." 

It  is  for  going  beyond  what  the  Scripture  has  authorized,  and 
for  trying  to  force  upon  it  a  theory  inconsistent  with  its  other 
teachings,  that  we  object  to  the  Orthodox  dogma  of  the  Atone- 
ment. We  do  not  object  to  it,  that  it  makes  our  forgiveness  and 
salvation  to  depend  upon  the  death  of  Christ,  nor  that  it  asks  us 
to  believe  in  some  mysterious  and  unexplained  efficacy  in  that 
mediatorial  work.  But  we  do  object  to  that  unscriptural  and 
pagan  element  in  its  theory,  which  represents  God  as  looking 
upon  the  misery  endured  by  Christ  as  an  equivalent  offset,  ex- 
piation, or  substitution  for  the  sufferings  of  the  sinner,  and  the 


APPENDIX.  ,  485 

only  method  by  which  God  could  exercise  his  attribute  of  mercy 
toward  man.  We  hail  with  gratitude  the  relief  offered  us  in  the 
writings  of  some  of  the  most  liberal  and  enlarged  minds  of  exist- 
ing Orthodox  communions,  which  repudiate  the  old,  barbarous, 
and  vindictive  representations  once  used  in  setting  forth  the  im- 
agery of  the  doctrine  of  the  Calvinistic  Atonement.  But  we  still 
encounter  a  remnant  of  the  old,  hideous  device,  however  it  be  sub- 
dued, in  the  "  governmental  theory."  In  exact  proportion  to  the 
element  retained  in  this  theory  of  the  ancient  and  the  substantial 
Orthodox  doctrine,  which  taught  that  God's  law  prevented  his  ex- 
ercise of  mercy  except  through  the  expiatory  suffering  of  an  in- 
nocent victim  substituted  for  the  sinner,  —  in  that  same  proportion 
do  we  measure  our  opposition  to  the  theory.  We  insist,  that  what 
the  Scripture  has  left  unexplained  as  to  the  mode  of  efficacy  of 
the  mediatorial  work  of  Christ  shall  not  have  the  veil  drawn  from 
it  by  the  obtrusion  of  any  such  theory  as  this  in  the  place  of  the 
mystery.  Scripture  tells  us  that  Jesus  was  a  victim  to  the  wicked- 
ness and  prejudices  of  the  Jews.  But  no  earnestness  of  Orthodox 
appeal  can  ever  dispose  us  to  believe,  that,  had  the  passions  of 
those  Jews  fallen  one  whit  short  of  the  actual  crucifixion  of  Christ, 
God,  the  Father  of  the  human  race,  could  never  have  forgiven 
and  restored  one  single  penitent  sinner  of  that  race  through  time 
or  eternity. 

After  this  summary  of  the  positive  and  direct  points  discussed 
in  my  essay,  I  revert  to  the  criticisms  now  before  me.  I  find 
the  paper  plentifully  strewn  with  those  texts  from  the  Epistles, 
especially  from  that  doubtful  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which, 
with  their  perverted  constructions,  glosses,  and  associations, 
form  the  staple  of  an  Orthodox  argument  on  this  doctrine. 
One  needs  not  go  out  of  the  range  of  the  works  of  the  best  Or- 
thodox commentators  and  expositors,  particularly  of  some  who 
have  written  within  the  last  few  years,  for  proof  of  the  utter 
irrelevancy  of  those  texts  for  the  use  to  which  they  are  adduced. 
Translate  by  the  term  Mercy-seat  the  word  mistranslated  by 
Propitiation,  and  connect  with  it  the  uses  and  truths  of  which 
the  Mercy-seat  of  the  Ark  was  the  symbol  in  the  old  Covenant, 
and  the  Orthodox  theory  is  lamed  in  the  very  start  for  authenti- 
cating itself  by  Scripture. 
41* 


486  .  APPENDIX. 

Recognizing  my  allowance  of  the  favorable  modifications  of 
the  old  doctrine,  and  assuming  a  defence  against  me  of  the  gov- 
ernmental theory,  my  critic  says  :  — 

"  It  supposes  that  an  atonement  for  sinners  was  necessary, 
not  merely  as  a  means  of  bringing  them  to  repentance,  but  to 
open  a  way  of  salvation  for  them,  when  they  had  repented.  It 
was  necessary  to  sustain  the  honor,  the  broken  law  of  God,  to 
vindicate  his  authority,  to  satisfy  his  glorious  justice.  Or  to 
present  the  whole  in  almost  the  precise  language  of  Paul  :  a 
propitiation,  an  atonement,  was  and  is  necessary,  l  to  declare 
God's  righteousness  for  the  remission  of  sins  that  are  past, 
through  the  forbearance  of  God  ;  —  to  declare,  I  say,  at  this  time, 
his  righteousness,  that  he  might  be  just,  and  the  justifier  of  him 
who  believeth  in  Jesus.'     Rom.  iii.  25." 

The  reader  can  hardly  fail  to  note  the  chasm  which  divides 
the  assertion  of  the  critic  from  the  assertion  of  the  text,  even 
after  he  has  used  the  help  of  false  emphasis  and  italics  upon 
its  words.  Where  is  there  anything  about  the  insufficiency  of 
repentance,  the  demands  of  an  insulted  law,  and  the  value  of 
substituted  sufferings  as  recognized  by  God  ?  My  critic  would 
say,  these  come  from  the  text  by  fair  inference.  I  grant  the 
operation  of  inference,  but  deny  the  fairness  of  it.  The  lucid 
paraphrase  of  Locke  lets  in  a  better  light :  — "  They  have  all, 
both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  sinned,  and  fail  of  attaining  that  glory 
which  God  hath  appointed  for  the  righteous.  Being  made  right- 
eous gratis,  by  the  favor  of  God,  through  the  redemption  which 
is  by  Jesus  Christ.  Whom  God  hath  set  forth  to  be  the  propiti- 
atory or  mercy-seat  in  his  own  blood  [death],  for  the  manifesta- 
tion of  God's  righteousness,  by  passing  over  their  transgressions, 
formerly  committed,  which  he  hath  borne  with  hitherto,  so  as  to 
withhold  his  hand  from  casting  off  the  nation  of  the  Jews  as 
their  past  sins  deserved.  For  the  manifesting  his  righteousness 
at  this  time,  that  he  might  be  just  in  keeping  his  promise,  and 
be  the  justifier  of  every  one,  not  who  is  of  the  Jewish  nation  or 
extraction,  but  of  the  faith  in  Jesus  Christ."  *  And  in  a  note 
this  discreet  commentator  remarks: — "Redemption  by  Jesus 
Christ  does  not  import  there  was  any  compensation  paid  to 
God,  by  paying  what  was  of  equal  value,  in  consideration 
whereof  they  were  delivered  :  for  that  is  inconsistent  with  what 
St.  Paul  expressly  says  here,  namely,  that  sinners  are  justified 
by  God  gratis,  and  of  his  free  bounty." 


APPENDIX.     *  487 

The  following  paragraphs  might  seem  at  first  sight  to  contain 
matter  covering  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  alleged. 

"  Mr.  Ellis  admits  that  the  death  of  Christ  was  a  sacrifice, 
'in  the  highest  and  most  sacred  signification  of  the  word'; 
but  '  a  sacrifice  for  man,  and  not  to  God.''  Unfortunately,  the 
Apostle  Paul  seems  to  have  taken  a  different  view  of  the  matter. 
1  Christ  also  hath  loved  us,  and  hath  given  himself  for  us,  an 
offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God,  for  a  sweet-smelling  savor.' 
Eph.  ii.  5.  '  How  much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who, 
through  the  Eternal  Spirit,  offered  himself  without  spot  to  God, 
purge  your  conscience  from  dead  works.'  Heb.  ix.  14.  Also 
the  bloody  sacrifices  of  the  Jews  —  all  typifying,  shadowing 
forth,  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  —  were  offered,  in  every  case,  to 
God.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  intercession  of  Christ. 
This  is  but  the  carrying  out,  the  consummation,  of  his  work  of 
Atonement ;  and  yet  no  one  can  doubt  that  his  intercessions 
are  addressed  to  God. 

"  Mr.  Ellis  denies  —  in  face  of  the  full  and  explicit  exposition 
of  them  given  by  the  Apostles,  and  especially  by  Paul  in  his 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  —  that  the  sacrifices  of  the  Jews  had 
any  reference  to  the  death  of  Christ,  or  anything  in  them  of  a 
typical  character.  '  Not  the  most  distant  intimation  is  given  in 
the  Old  Testament,  that  the  ritual  sacrifices  looked  beyond 
themselves  to  an  anticipation  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  Not 
a  word  can  be  quoted  from  lawgiver,  prophet,  or  priest,  to  prove 
that  such  a  reference  was  had  in  view.'  We  cannot  stop  to 
argue  the  question  as  to  the  typical  character  of  the  Hebrew 
sacrifices.  If  this  character  is  not  expressly  given  to  them  in 
the  Old  Testament,  it  is  in  the  New.  Paul  has  argued  the 
question  sufficiently,  both  for  himself  and  me. 

"  Mr.  Ellis  has  another  notion  respecting  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ,  which  is,  perhaps,  peculiar  to  himself.  Certainly  it  is 
very  different  from  that  of  the  New  Testament.  The  doctrine 
of  Paul  is,  that  Christ,  the  Great  High-Priest  of  our  profession, 
offered  up  himself  a  sacrifice  for  our  sins,  *  who,  through  the 
Eternal  Spirit,  offered  up  himself  without  spot,  to  God.'  But 
Mr.  Ellis  thinks  that  he  was  offered  up  by  his  murderers.  '  We 
regard  Christ  as  a  victim  offered  up  by  human  sin  for  human 
redemption.'  ■  It  was  man,  not  God,  who  made  Christ  a  curse 
for  us.'  " 

I  might  ask  my  critic  here  a  series  of  questions  which  he 
would  find  it  difficult  to  answer.  Thus,  for  instance,  How  did 
he  succeed  in  satisfying  himself,  against  the  judgment  of  the  best 
critics  and  an  overwhelming  array  of  external  and  internal  evi- 


488  -  APPENDIX. 

dence,  that  St.  Paul  wrote  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  ?  Would 
he  take  upon  himself  the  defence  'of  all  the  forced  analogies, 
accommodations,  and  fanciful  parallelisms  by  which  the  writer 
of  that  Epistle  —  so  strangely  unlike  everything  which  we  have 
from  the  pen  of  St.  Paul  —  attempts  to  conciliate  ritualistic 
Jews  to  the  simplicity  of  Christ  ?  Again,  leaving  as  of  no  ac- 
count what  I  have  said  in  my  Essay  in  explanation  of  the  class 
of  texts  here  quoted,  does  either  one  of  them,  do  all  of  them, 
when  their  figures  are  forced  into  the  most  literal  construction, 
convey  the  terms  of  the  Governmental  Theory  ?  Is  the  death 
of  an  innocent  victim  really  of  sweet-smelling  savor  to  a  holy 
God  ?  Is  a  sort  of  Divine  suicide  really  suggested  to  us  by  the 
Apostle  as  a  matter  of  gracious  contemplation  in  heaven  ?  Is  a 
"  purging  of  our  consciences  from  dead  works  "  equivalent  to 
a  satisfying  of  the  Divine  law  by  a  vicarious  victim?  And, 
once  more,  if  Christ  by  his  own  voluntary  submission  was  not 
made  a  victim  by  men,  was^  he,  the  Beloved  Son,  really  made  a 
curse  by  God  ? 

I  cannot  here  reargue  matters  which  I  have  discussed  accord- 
ing to  my  ability,  however  inadequately,  in  the  preceding  Essay. 
Yet,  as  I  recognize  the  kindest  possible  intent  in  my  critic,  as 
well  as  his  firm  persuasion  that  his  plea  ought  not  to  be  without 
force  with  me,  I  will  not  slight  any  part  of  it.  In  connection 
with  what  I  have  just  quoted  from  him  is  the  following  :  — 

"  Mr.  Ellis's  objections  to  our  doctrine  of  Atonement  are  such 
as  these :  —  First,  '  it  is  not  distinctly  revealed,  nor  directly 
taught  in  the  Scriptures.1  He  admits,  indeed,  that,  '  by  the  aid 
of  inference,  and  construction,  and  ingenuity,  Orthodoxy  can 
make  out  an  argument  of  considerable  plausibility  for  this 
theory.'  '  A  marvellous  show  of  apparent  authority  may  be 
claimed  for  it.'  Still,  it  is  in  his  view  an  unscriptural  doctrine. 
'  Where  is  there  a  sentence  within  the  covers  of  the  Bible  that 
can  be  quoted  as  explicitly  advancing  it  ? '  Its  believers  *  should 
give  us  at  least  one  text,  which  includes  all  its  essential  terms.' 
If  by  this  it  is  meant,  that  we  have,  in  no  one  text  of  Scripture, 
a  full,  scientific  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  Atonement,  we 
admit  it.  The  Scriptures  do  not  abound  in  scientific  statements 
of  doctrine.  But  if  it  be  meant  that  the  Scriptures  do  not,  in  a 
great  many  passages,  teach  the  doctrine  of  Atonement,  in  our 
sense  of  the  word,  —  Atonement  by  the  sufferings  and  death  of 
Christ,  '  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  for  a  sweet-smelling 


APPENDIX.  489 

savor,'  —  we  record  our  most  solemn  dissent  from  such  a  state- 
ment ;  —  a  dissent  in  which  we  have  the  concurrence  of  nine 
tenths  of  the  Protestant  Christian  world,  including  most  of  the 
Unitarians  of  a  former  age.  Mr.  Ellis  is  not  ignorant  of  the 
numerous  passages  which  clearly  enough  assert  this  doctrine  ;  for 
he  cursorily  reviews  some  of  them,  and  endeavors  to  set  aside 
their  obvious  import.  But  the  attempt  is  a  vain  one.  The  real 
meaning  shines  out  too  clearly  to  be  obscured  by  anything  short 
of  torture.  Professor  F.  D.  Huntington,  having  quoted  the  same 
Scriptures,  says  :  l  Now,  as  one  ponders  the  singular  force,  and 
directness,  and  agreement  of  these  passages,  and  very  many 
more  of  the  same  import,  and  marks  their  cumulative  power,  as 
they  resound  through  the  New  Testament,  we  submit  that  it  will 
not  be  strange  if  he  feels  that  on  those  '  who  deny  the  Orthodox 
doctrine  i  rests  the  burden  of  explaining  how,  according  to  the 
Bible,  the  death  of  Christ  is  not  the  divinely  ordained  and  essen- 
tial ground  of  human  salvation.'  '  There  is  some  reason  to 
think  that  passages  like  those  we  have  quoted  have  become 
comparatively  unfamiliar  to  Unitarian  ears,  by  having  been 
dropped  out  of  Unitarian  preaching,  under  a  natural  persuasion 
that  they  do  not  harmonize  with  the  Unitarian  theory.' " 

No  !  The  Governmental  Theory  of  Atonement  is  not  dis- 
tinctly revealed  nor  directly  taught  in  the  Scriptures.  It  is  for 
those  who  place  this  theory  at  the  very  foundation  of  the  Chris- 
tian system  to  account  as  best  they  can  for  the  fact  that  they 
have  to  use  their  own  ingenuity  to  construct  a  formula  for  ex- 
pressing it.  How  is  it  that,  in  all  the  discourses  of  the  Master 
and  of  his  Apostles,  from  first  to  last,  not  a  single  sentence  was 
uttered  embracing  either,  much  less  both,  of  these  two  terms  of 
the  Theory,  —  namely,  the  insufficiency  of  penitence  to  win  the 
mercy  of  God,  and  the  necessity  of  satisfying  an  outraged  law 
by  the  suffering  of  the  innocent,  regarded  by  God  as  an  equiva- 
lent by  way  of  substitute  for  the  sufferings  of  the  guilty  ?  But 
my  critic  yields  the  point.  I  thank  him  for  his  candor  in  affirm- 
ing what  nevertheless  could  not  have  been  denied.  He  grants 
that  no  one  text  of  Scripture  contains  a  full  scientific  statement 
of  the  doctrine  of  Atonement,  —  i.  e.  of  the  Orthodox  doctrine. 
Why  then  should  he  make  a  scientific  statement  of  it  for  us  ? 
Confessedly,  it  must  be  only  by  putting  together  texts,  and  parts 
of  texts,  and  by  making  one's  own  inferences  and  constructions 
a  solvent  or  a  cement  of  them,  that  this  Theory  can  find  terms 


490  APPENDIX. 

for  its  expression.  But  even  then  it  cannot  express  all  its  terms  in 
Scripture  language  or  phraseology.  Let  this  most  significant  fact 
be  pondered  well.  Inspiration  has  not  given  us  the  means  for  stat- 
ing the  Orthodox  doctrine  of  atonement  in  a  formula.  Not  a  sin- 
gle other  Christian  doctrine  can  be  specified  for  the  expression  of 
which  we  cannot  find  in  Scripture  language  an  adequate  and  ex- 
haustive sentence,  whether  for  the  simple  uses  of  a  child's  cate- 
chism, or  for  inscriptions  over  the  most  magnificent  portals  or  the 
most  august  altars.  The  mediatorial  work  of  Christ  must  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  uninspired  speech  of  men,  if  we  wish  to  express  it 
by  the  terms  of  the  Governmental  Theory.  There  is  a  remnant 
of  the  old-fashioned  style  of  controversy  in  the  sentences  in 
which  my  critic  says  that  I  am  not  "  ignorant  of  the  numerous 
passages  which  clearly  enough  assert  this  doctrine  "  ;  and  that  I 
"endeavor  to  set  aside  their  obvious  import."  The  clearly 
enough  may  signify  the  evidence  which  satisfies  him  without 
satisfying  another.  To  charge  a  serious  searcher  for  the  truth 
in  the  Scriptures  with  an  endeavor  to  set  aside  their  obvious  im- 
port is  to  give  up  one's  charity  under  a  momentary  testiness  at 
being  foiled  in  an  argument.  The  obvious  import  of  Scripture 
is  what  I  am  seeking,  not  rejecting.  Some  Unitarians  have 
doubtless,  as  I  said  in  my  essay,  allowed  the  passages  and 
phrases  quoted  by  Professor  Huntington  to  drop  out  of  their 
preaching,  because  Orthodox  perversions  had  connected  false  as- 
sociations with  their  meaning.  But  other  Unitarians  have  loved 
to  retain  them  in  use,  not  finding  in  them  a  trace  of  the  terms  of 
the  Governmental  Theory. 

The  next  paragraph  challenges  my  assertion  that  "  the  Scrip- 
tures do  not  lay  the  emphatic  stress  of  Christ's  redeeming  work 
upon  his  death,  above  or  apart  from  his  life,  character,  and  doc- 
trine." (p.  184.)  My  critic,  on  the  other  hand,  says  that  fifty 
years'  reading  of  the  Scriptures  has  shown  him  that  they  lay  an 
"  emphasis  altogether  peculiar  upon  the  blood,  the  cross,  the 
sufferings,  and  the  death  of  Christ,"  in  connection  with  the  sal- 
vation of  sinners.  He  admits  the  stress  that  is  laid  upon  the 
resurrection  of  Christ,  but  ventures  the  assertion,  that  "  the  num- 
ber of  passages  in  which  our  salvation  is  referred  to  the  suffer- 
ings and  death  of  Christ,  compared  with  those  in  which  it  is 


APPENDIX.  491 

referred  to  his  resurrection,  will  be  as  four  to  one."  I  cannot 
call  to  mind  a  single  passage  in  which  our  salvation  is  referred 
to  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  I  spoke  of  his  redeeming  or  me- 
diatorial work  as  a  whole.  Any  one  who  wishes  may  make  a 
count  of  the  passages. 

The  paragraph  which  follows  will  be  found  to  contain  a  good 
Orthodox  argument  against  a  difficulty  of  its  own  raising. 

"  Mr.  Ellis  objects  again  to  our  view  of  the  Atonement,  that 
it  *  fetters  God's  exercise  of  mercy,  by  the  restraints  of  his  penal 
law.'  (p.  214.)  But  the  laws  are  of  his  own  appointment,  and 
he  is  no  more  fettered  by  them  than  he  is  by  the  great  law  of 
justice,  of  right.  It  is  no  restraint  of  God's  moral  liberty,  that 
he  cannot  do  wrong  ;  nor  is  it  any  restraint  upon  his  mercy, 
that  he  cannot  exercise  it  in  violation  of  justice,  —  to  his  own 
dishonor  and  the  detriment  of  all  those  great  interests  which  his 
law  protects." 

But  the  actual  difficulty  is,  that  the  claims  of  real  justice  are 
not  met  by  the  method  invented  by  Orthodoxy  for  relieving  the 
Divine  government  of  the  dilemma  also  invented  for  it.  We 
do  not  find  any  such  dilemma  recognized  in  Scripture  as  em- 
barrassing the  Almighty.  He  has  mercy  on  whom  he  will  have 
mercy.  If  he  has  said,  as  revelation  affirms  that  he  has,  that  he 
that  confesseth  and  forsaketh  his  sins  shall  be  forgiven,  —  not  a 
word  being  intimated  of  any  "  governmental  difficulty  "  in  the 
way,  —  we  certainly  shall  leave  the  Merciful  Judge  to  harmonize 
his  own  methods,  and  shall  create  no  embarrassment  for  the 
sake  of  getting  round  it.  It  is  hardly  fair,  however,  to  meet  the 
assertion,  that  God  may  freely  forgive  the  penitent,  with  the  dog- 
matic affirmation  that  God  cannot  do  wrong.  It  is  hard,  too,  to 
find  that  mercy,  which  all  through  the  Bible  is  represented  as 
the  crowning  attribute  of  a  God  of  love,  needs  an  Orthodox  in- 
vention to  secure  it  from  turning  to  his  dishonor. 

The  next  point  argued  by  my  critic  is  as  follows :  — 

"  Mr.  Ellis  insists  that  repentance  is  not  only  the  sole  condi- 
tion of  pardon,  but  the  sole  ground  of  it ;  —  that  no  other  ground, 
no  expedient  to  sustain  law,  while  dispensing  mercy,  is  required 
or  needed.  •  Forgiveness  on  penitence  does  not,  in  any  case, 
peril  the  authority  of  the  Divine  law.'  (p.  216.)  To  prove  this, 
Mr.   Ellis  cites  cases    in  which    forgiveness   is   promised    and 


492  APPENDIX.- 

granted  to  the  penitent,  without  any  referrence  to  an  Atonement 
as  the  ground  of  it.  He  even  says,  that  one  •  single  case  by 
which,  on  the  authority  of  inspiration,  full  forgiveness  was 
promised  on  simple  repentance,  without  reference  to  any  im- 
plied or  reserved  condition,  would  prove  that  the  Divine  admin- 
istration, as  revealed  to  men,  did  not  always  recognize  this 
limitation  of  the  prerogative  of  mercy.'  (p.  200.)  Now  this 
seems  to  us  a  very  strange  assertion.  Suppose  forgiveness  to 
the  penitent  cannot  be  imparted,  except  through  the  efficacy  of 
a  provided  Atonement,  is  God  bound,  in  every  promise  of  for- 
giveness to  the  penitent,  to  make  a  full  statement  of  the  ground 
of  such  promise  ?  Not  at  all.  As  well  might  we  infer,  because 
forgiveness  is  said  to  flow  through  the  blood  of  Christ,  without  any 
express  mention  of  repentance,  that  therefore  repentance  is  un- 
necessary. '  In  whom  we  have  redemption,  through  his  blood, 
the  forgiveness  of  sins,  according  to  the  riches  of  his  grace.' 
(Eph.  i.  7  ;  Col.  i.  14.)  The  truth  is,  God  has  stated  with 
sufficient  clearness  and  frequency,  both  the  grounds  and  the 
conditions  of  pardon  under  his  government,  —  though  not  al- 
ways both  together,  —  and  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  set  aside 
either  the  one  or  the  other." 

No  other  ground  for  the  exercise  of  mercy  on  the  part  of  God 
is  recognized  in  Scripture,  than  penitence  on  the  part  of  the  sin- 
ner. To  say  that  God  is  not  bound,  in  every  case  of  the  exer- 
cise of  mercy  to  a  penitent,  to  make  known  to  him  a  reserved 
but  all-essential  condition  beside  penitence,  is  to  make  a  sup- 
position of  a  merely  possible  contingency  to  stand  as  an  offset  to 
hundreds  of  passages  which  say  that  penitence  insures  forgive- 
ness. The  subtle  distinction  between  the  grounds  and  the  con- 
ditions of  pardon  is  a  pure  Orthodox  invention,  a  dogmatic  de- 
vice of  which  the  Scriptures  know  absolutely  nothing. 

One  other  matter  of  extreme  importance,  in  its  vital  connec- 
tion with  the  true  Scripture  doctrine  as  to  the  terms  of  accept- 
ance with  God,  is  recognized  by  my  critic  in  the  following  para- 
graph :  — 

"  Mr.  Ellis  thinks  the  Orthodox  are  much  perplexed  about  the 
condition  of  Jews  and  heathens,  who  have  died  without  any 
knowledge  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  But  we  feel  no  such  per- 
plexity. We  hear  of  none.  We  believe  with  Peter,  '  that  God 
is  no  respecter  of  persons :  but  in  every  nation  he  that  feareth 
him,  and  worketh  righteousness,  is  accepted  with  him.'  (Acts 
x.    34.)       But    how    accepted  ?      Undoubtedly,    through    the 


APPENDIX.  493 

Atonement  of  Christ,  though  he  may  never  have  heard  of  it. 
The  Jew,  the  heathen,  who  fears  God,  and  works  righteousness, 
has  the  element  of  faith  in  Christ,  though  not  thefor?n  of  it.  He 
has  that  (as  in  the  case  of  Cornelius)  which  will  be  faith,  the 
moment  he  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  Christ,  whether  that 
knowledge  is  first  imparted  in  this  world,  or  the  next ;  and  he 
is  as  really  forgiven  for  ChrisVs  sake,  as  the  devoutest  Christian. 
The  entire  company  of  the  redeemed  in  heaven,  '  of  every  kin- 
dred, and  tongue,  and  people,  and  nation,'  are  represented  as 
singing  with  one  voice  :  l  Thou  art  worthy  to  take  the  book,  and 
to  open  the  seals  thereof,  for  thou  wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed 
us  unto  God  by  thy  blood.''  " 

I  will  take  the  word  of  the  writer  as  evidence  that  he  himself 
feels  no  perplexity  on  this  painful  and  fearful  issue  raised  by  the 
Orthodox  dogma  that  the  terms  of  salvation  are  repentance  and 
faith  in  the  propitiatory  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  I  cannot 
receive  his  disclaimer  as  meeting  the  terrible  perplexity  present- 
ed by  the  creed.  The  pages  of  this  volume  contain  abundant 
evidence  of  the  perplexity  which  consistent  Orthodox  men  have 
found  in  disposing  of  the  heathen  through  the  Calvinistic  theory. 
Some  of  the  Orthodox  of  firmer  theological  nerves  rode  over  the 
perplexity  by  sending  the  heathen  in  a  mass  to  hell.  On  pages 
174  and  175,  I  have  quoted  good  Mr.  FlavePs  own  words  to  this 
effect.  He  has  no  idea  of  being  "  indulgent  to  the  heathen." 
He  maintains  the  direct  "  impossibility  of  their  salvation  that 
know  not  Christ."  Heathens,  he  says,  cannot  "  inherit  heav- 
en." He  adds  :  "  I  know  it  seems  hard  that  such  brave  men  as 
some  of  the  heathen  were  should  be  damned.  But  the  Scrip- 
ture knows  no  other  way  to  glory  but  Christ,  put  on  and  applied 
by  faith.  And  it  is  the  common  suffrage  of  modern  sound  di- 
vines, that  no  man  by  the  sole  conduct  of  nature,  without  the 
knowledge  of  Christ,  can  be  saved." 

Again,  on  pages  350  and  351,  I  have  taken  notice  of  the 
shock  caused  to  many  of  the  Orthodox  by  the  bold  assertion  of 
the  North  British  Review,  that  the  heathen  will  not  perish  be- 
cause of  their  ignorance  of  the  Gospel.  I  cannot  but  admire 
the  ingenuity  of  my  critic  in  his  curious  device  for  disposing  of 
the  perplexity.  The  purpose  of  it  is  so  kindly,  humane,  and 
Christian  that  it  must  be  winked  at.  In  fact,  it  comes  to  the 
same  result  as  does  the  Unitarian  view,  though  it  goes  the  long- 
42 


494  APPENDIX. 

est  way  round  to  get  to  it.  Faith  in  Christ  as  an  expiatory 
sacrifice  is  essential  to  the  salvation  of  a  penitent,  —  says  the 
creed.  The  pious  Jew,  says  my  critic,  has  the  element  of  that 
faith,  he  has  what  will  he  it  when  he  has  a  chance  to  know  it 
as  such.  It  is  a  beautiful  and  a  grateful  suggestion.  Heartily 
do  I  thank  my  critic  for  it.  But  still  it  is  a  most  round-about 
way  for  bringing  the  free  mercy  of  God  to  bear  upon  the  peni- 
tent. 

When  I  wrote  the  essay  with  the  criticisms  upon  which  I  am 
now  concerned,  I  devoted  considerable  space  to  the  argument, 
that  the  exercise  of  the  Divine  prerogative  of  mercy  under  the 
Tewish  covenant  was  not  fettered  or  made  dependent  upon  any 
express  or  implied  limitation,  least  of  all  that  limitation  which 
Orthodoxy  now  imposes  upon  it.  This  argument  was  designed 
to  meet  the  well-known  Calvinistic  theory,  that  the  Old  Tes- 
tament sacrifices  were  typical  of  the  crucifixion,  and  that  the 
penitents  had  an  anticipatory  share,  through  faith,  in  the  benefits 
of  Christ's  death.  I  should  not  have  then  spent  such  labor  on 
an  incidental  point,  had  an  essay  which  has  appeared  in  print 
this  year  been  available  for  my  use  during  the  previous  year. 
I  refer  to  a  most  remarkable  and  significant  essay  which  ap- 
peared in  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra  for  January,  1857,  —  one  of 
those  admirable  papers  which  that  valuable  periodical  has  fur- 
nished as  the  fruits  of  liberal  scholarship  and  the  tokens  of  in- 
dependent thought  in  the  Orthodox  body.  The  theme  of  the 
essay  is,  —  "  The  Knowledge  and  Faith  of  the  Old  Testament 
Saints  respecting  the  promised  Messiah."  The  question  under 
discussion  is,  "  What  Knowledge  had  they  of  him  in  his  pecu- 
liar character  as  an  atoning  Saviour,  and  what  Faith,  if  any, 
did  they  exercise  in  him  as  such  ?  "  The  answer  is,  None  at 
all,  of  either  Knowledge  or  Faith  !  The  argument  is  as  fol- 
lows : —  "The  promised  Messiah  is  never  held  up  in  the  Old 
Testament  as  the  object  of  confidence,  faith,  or  love  ;  nor  are 
the  Jews  called  on  to  rely  personally  upon  his  Atonement  for 
the  remission  of  sins  and  acceptance  with  God.  Nowhere  in 
the  Old  Testament  is  faith  in  an  atoning  Messiah  proposed  or 
required  as  a  condition,  or  pardon  promised  on  the  ground  of 
it."    "  The  promise  of  pardon  is  everywhere  made  to  repentance 


APPENDIX.  495 

and  reformation,  when  they  are  hearty  and  thorough  enough." 
"  We  may  have  our  theory,  that  to  know  and  believe  on  Christ 
has,  in  all  ages,  been  indispensable  to  pardon  and  salvation.  But 
the  Bible  nowhere  says  that  it  was  so  to  those  who  lived  before 
the  crucifixion,  or  even  to  those  now  living  where  the  Gospel  is 
not  known.  Is  it  not  presumptuous  for  us  to  have  opinions  and 
theories  on  such  a  point,  not  fairly  deduced  from  the  revelations 
of  God?" 

I  must  quote  two  more  choice  extracts  from  this  excellent 
paper.  "  Repentance  is  a  saving  grace,  as  well  as  faith  in 
Christ.  And  where  one  of  them,  genuine  in  its  character,  is 
exercised,  the  other  infallibly  will  be,  if  the  subject  has  the 
requisite  knowledge."  "  All  that  can  be  regarded  as  moral 
excellence  in  the  renewed  sinner  is  probably  not  less  clearly 
indicated  by  his  godly  sorrow  for  sin,  and  his  hearty  striving 
against  it,  than  by  the  simple  act  of  faith  in  Christ." 

For  writing  and  saying  precisely  such  things  as  these  fifty 
years  ago,  Unitarians  were  charged  with  opposing  and  ridiculing 
missions  to  the  heathen.  Compare  now  the  views  of  Mr.  Flavel 
and  other  old  Calvinists  with  these  "  indulgent  "  views,  which 
have  the  indorsement  of  an  Orthodox  periodical.  Let  the 
reader  do  that,  and  then  he  will  gratefully  thank  God  for  the 
progress  and  power  of  true  Gospel  light  amid  dark  human  spec- 
ulations. 

But  a  very  serious  embarrassment  still  arrests  one's  thoughts, 
as  he  considers  that  those  who  yield  all  that  I  have  just  quoted 
insist,  nevertheless,  that  the  propitiatory  sacrifice  of  Christ, 
whether  the  fact  of  it  be  known  or  not  known,  is  still  the  all- 
essential  ground  of  the  pardon  of  a  penitent  heathen,  Jew,  or 
Christian.  Most  significant  is  the  suggestion  which  forces  itself 
upon  our  minds  in  leading  us  to  ask,  If  Orthodoxy,  in  conceding 
what  it  does  concede  to  avoid  one  terrible  perplexity  involved  in 
its  theory,  does  not  run  the  risk  of  sacrificing  a  chief,  if  not  the 
highest,  recommendation  of  its  theory,  —  namely,  the  power  of 
motive  which  it  offers  to  the  penitent  in  displaying  and  appealing 
from  the  willing  sacrifice  of  Christ  ?  The  more  that  Orthodoxy 
concedes  as  to  the  efficacy  of  Christ's  Atonement  for  those  who 
know  nothing  of  it,  the  less  does  it  make  of  that  Atonement  as 


496  APPENDIX. 

furnishing  motives  to  the  sinner,  while  it  increases  proportion- 
ately the  stress  of  value  assigned  to  it  for  satisfying  God,  in  the 
way  of  a  substitution.  We  know  and  admit  the  power  over  the 
human  heart  which  goes  with  Orthodox  appeals  from  the  cross 
of  Christ.  Those  appeals  turn  themselves  into  earnest  and  lov- 
ing motives  to  penitence  and  amendment  of  life.  This  is  the 
one  redeeming  influence  even  of  the  most  harrowing  views  of 
the  Atonement  which  have  been  presented  under  Roman  Catholic 
or  Calvinistic  preaching  from  the  crucifix  or  from  Calvary. 
Sinners  have  often  been  induced  to  forget  the  hideous  represen- 
tations made  to  them  in  the  name  of  God  the  Father,  of  his  un- 
relenting demands  and  his  stern  vengeance,  through  force  of  the 
gentle  and  melting  sway  of  the  self-sacrificing  Saviour  over 
their  hearts.  It  is  an  incitement,  a  help  to  penitence.  It  fur- 
nishes a  motive  of  irresistible  might,  and  one  which  the  heart 
loves  to  own  and  obey  without  imposing  upon  it  measurement  or 
limitation.  This  power  as  a  motive  comes  from  the  cross  of 
Christ,  in  that  view  of  it  which  has  its  highest  and  holiest  influ- 
ence to  Unitarians.  Orthodoxy,  too,  has  won  some  of  the  tri- 
umphs which  it  has  ascribed  to  the  God-ward  view  of  the  Atone- 
ment from  this  irresistible  power  of  motive  which  goes  with 
appeals  to  the  heart  from  the  cross.  Yet  this  power  of  appeal 
from  the  cross,  as  furnishing  motives  for  penitence  and  obedi- 
ence, of  course  is  restricted  to  those  who  actually  have  knowl- 
edge of  Christ.  The  old  Jews  and  the  heathen,  then,  if  bene- 
fited by  the  cross,  had  no  help  of  motive  from  it,  and  its  entire 
efficacy  in  their  case  must  be  its  God-ward  efficacy  in  their  be- 
half for  them,  not  at  all  upon  them.  It  is  implied  that,  at  some 
future  time,  these  forgiven  Jews  and  heathen,  who  supposed 
they  were  forgiven  by  a  simple  exercise  of  God's  mercy,  will 
learn  that  the  real  ground  of  their  forgiveness  was  the  cross  of 
Christ.  The  discovery  will  disclose  to  them  that,  while  they 
thought  they  owed  their  discharge  solely  to  the  clemency  of 
their  judge,  their  debts  have,  unknown  to  them,  been  paid  to 
him  by  a  substitute.  The  admission  being  yielded,  that  millions 
of  human  beings  may  have  the  whole  benefit  of  the  cross  with- 
out any  knowledge  of  the  sacrifice  upon  it,  without  any  help 
from  motive  or  gratitude  in  appeals  from  it,  it  must  follow  of 


APPENDIX.  497 

course  that  in  their  case  the  whole  necessity  for  the  cross  was 
on  the  side  of  God,  and  the  whole  operation  of  it  is  God-ward. 
Now,  if  millions  of  the  human  race  may  thus  have  the  full 
benefit  of  the  cross  without  any  knowledge  or  subjective  help 
from  it  on  earth,  why  is  that  knowledge  or  subjective  help  from 
it  essential  to  any  portion  of  the  human  race  ?  Is  not  this  a 
making  the  cross  of  Christ  of  none  effect  upon  men,  to  assign 
all  its  effect  to  its  operation  with  God  ?  Why,  then,  might  not 
the  crucifixion  have  transpired,  and  the  whole  world  for  ever 
have  been  ignorant  of  it  ?  If  the  mediatorial  work  of  Christ,  in- 
stead of  being  a  means  and  medium  for  manifesting  the  merci- 
ful  purposes  of  God,  was  the  ground  of  the  Divine  mercy,  why 
was  not  heaven,  rather  than  the  earth,  the  scene  of  its  display  ? 

As  to  the  Scripture  quotation  with  which  my  critic  closes,  I 
have  yet  a  few  remarks  to  offer.  His  scholarly  attainments 
would  forbid  his  denying  that  "  the  blood  of  Christ "  is  simply 
an  idiomatic  synonyme  of  "  the  death  of  Christ."  Some  Ortho- 
dox writers  of  less  culture  would  not  admit  this  etymological 
fact,  because  they  love  to  indulge  every  fancy  which  associates 
the  cross  with  an  immolation,  and  turns  its  blood  to  the  service 
of  a  ritualistic  purification.  But  proceeding  upon  the  allowance, 
which  an  intelligent  reader  will  not  withhold,  how  does  that  song 
of  the  redeemed  afford  any  support  to  the  Trinitarian,  or  to  the 
Governmental  Theory  ?  How  can  God  be  said  to  have  redeemed 
us  to  God  ?  Where  is  there  any  recognition  of  the  indispensa- 
ble condition  of  expiation,  or  of  the  Divine  demand  of  a  substi- 
tuted victim,  or  of  God's  acceptance  of  Christ  in  that  character  ? 
Much  of  the  most  emphatic  statement  of  Orthodox  doctrine  on 
this  subject,  as  in  opposition  to  us,  is  made  by  a  mere  blind  or 
catch  in  words.  We  are  said  to  fall  short  of  the  problem  of  re- 
demption by  giving  up  "  an  Infinite  Saviour."  This  is  intended 
by  the  Orthodox  to  convey  against  us  a  charge  of  depreciating 
Christ.  But  if  the  charge  were  really  taken  hy  us  as  meaning 
anything,  it  would  be  that  we  did  not  believe  in  God.  We  have 
"  an  Infinite  Saviour,"  for  as  Christ,  the  medium  of  that  salva- 
tion taught  us,  we  refer  the  plan,  the  method,  the  grace,  and  the 
glory  of  our  salvation  to  God.  We  say,  in  words  as  intelligible 
as  those  quoted  from  the  mystical  Apocalypse,  "  God  so  loved 
42* 


498  APPENDIX. 

the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life." 

This  speculative  and  argumentative  dealing  with  the  sacred 
theme  of  Reconciliation  to  God  by  Jesus  Christ,  has  not  been  to 
me  a  congenial  or  welcome  process.  On  the  contrary,  I  have 
found  positive  pain  in  bringing  the  holiest  and  tenderest  of  all 
the  precious  soul-sacraments  of  the  Gospel  under  debate  as  a 
theory,  a  dogma.  God  forgive  me,  if,  in  secularizing  the  theme 
as  the  claims  of  controverted  truth  seemed  to  allow,  I  have 
brought  to  its  discussion  any  other  than  chastened  and  serious 
and  humble  feelings.  The  meaning  of  prepositions  is  one  thing. 
Saving  and  efficacious  faith  in  Christ  is  another  thing.  Accept- 
ing the  great  text  with  all  three  of  the  meanings  of  its  preposi- 
tion, I  read,  "  God  was  BY,  IN,  and  THROUGH  Christ  recon- 
ciling the  world  unto  Himself." 


XL 


EXCLUSION   OF    UNITARIANS    FROM    CHRISTIAN  FEL- 
LOWSHIP. 

Near  the  close  of  my  Essay  on  the  Atonement,  I  had  ex- 
pressed a  regret  that  the  rejection  by  Unitarians  of  a  construc- 
tive interpretation  or  theory  of  the  Orthodox  doctrine  was  made 
a  principal  reason  for  excluding  them  from  Christian  fellowship. 
My  critic  makes  a  most  kindly  reference  to  this  matter,  and  I 
doubt  not  his  gentle  and  earnest  words  are  but  an  inadequate  ut- 
terance of  the  sincerity  and  full  conviction  of  his  heart.  But  he 
says  that,  "while  existing  differences  remain,  this  lack  of  fellow- 
ship is  inevitable."  It  is  impossible  that  we  should  "  unite  cor- 
dially and  consistently  in  the  most  solemn  rites  and  acts  of 
Christian  fellowship."  I  cannot  deny  my  critic  the  right  of  ad- 
dressing the  reader  in  his  own  words  on  this  point. 

"  Most  gladly  would  we  accept  the  fellowship  of  those  (or  the 
more  serious  part  of  them)  who  now  constitute  the  Unitarian 


APPENDIX.  499 

community  in  this  country.  We  have  longed  for  it,  prayed  for 
it,  waited  for  it ;  and  still  we  wait.  In  this  community  we  rec- 
ognize not  a  few  whom  we  respect  and  honor,  and  whom  we  are 
permitted  to  regard  as  among  our  most  valued  friends.  We  had 
hoped  that  the  time  was  approaching,  and  near  at  hand,  when 
those  who  had  gone  out  from  the  old  Orthodox  Congregational 
churches  of  New  England,  and  embraced  what  themselves  think 
is  another  Gospel,  would  return.  But  at  present  we  see  little 
(we  are  sorry  to  say  it)  to  encourage  such  a  hope.  Accepting 
the  articles  before  us  as  a  specimen,  we  see  little  advance  in  the 
right  direction  (unless  it  be  in  the  matter  of  phraseology)  be- 
yond what  was  inculcated  thirty  years  ago.  We  have  the  same 
differences  now  as  then,  in  respect  to  the  mode  of  the  Divine 
existence,  the  natural  state  and  character  of  man,  the  person  and 
work  of  Christ,  and  the  foundation  of  the  sinner's  hope ;  and 
while  these  continue,  we  see  not  how  there  can  be  fellowship, 
as  Christians.  We  impeach  not  the  sincerity  of  those  who  differ 
from  us  ;  we  question  not  the  excellence  of  their  moral  charac- 
ters and  social  virtues ;  we  will  treat  them  not  only  with  cour- 
tesy, but  kindness,  in  all  the  relations  and  intercourse  of  life. 
But  until  they  can  sing  with  us  the  "  new  song  "  which  should 
be  sung  by  all  Christians  on  earth,  as  we  know  it  will  be  by  all 
in  heaven  :  ■  Unto  him  who  hath  saved  us,  and  washed  us  from 
our  sins  in  his  own  blood,'  —  we  see  not,  as  was  said  above,  how 
there  can  be  the  fellowship  of  Christians." 

Now  I  would  not  be  understood  as  laying  any  undue  stress 
upon  an  incidental  matter,  to  which  I  made  a  passing  reference 
fully  as  much  under  a  prompting  of  regard  for  Orthodox  friends 
as  with  a  zeal  for  securing  a  full  Christian  recognition  for  my 
own  brethren.  I  have  noticed  in  some  other  quarter  a  criticism 
on  what  I  had  written,  to  the  effect  that,  though  Unitarians  de- 
nounced and  withstood  Orthodoxy,  they  had  a  timid  longing,  a 
weak  and  fond  craving,  to  hold  an  unbroken  fellowship  with  the 
Orthodox.  I  do  not  share  that  feeling  in  any  form  or  measure 
of  it  which  implies  a  desire  of  being  indorsed  by  the  Orthodox, 
or  of  being  admitted  into  their  more  private  or  confidential  relig- 
ious associations.  On  the  contrary,  I  think  our  present  relations 
are,  on  the  whole,  preferable  to  any  such  forcing  of  sympathies 
and  overcoming  of  mutual  antipathies  as  would  enter  into  the 
first  conditions  of  such  close  fellowship.  On  some  matters  we 
could  not  possibly  harmonize.  If  I  may  be  allowed  to  say  in 
the  mildest  terms  possible  what  it  seems  ungracious  to  say  in 


500 


APPENDIX. 


any  way,  I  will  avow  my  conviction  that  Unitarians  would  find 
full  as  much,  if  not  more,  embarrassment  and  hard  "forcing  of 
sympathy  in  a  full  union  with  the  Orthodox,  as  would  the  other 
party  to  the  compromise.  A  fellowship  between  the  parties 
would  require  full  as  much  of  concession  and  charity  from 
the  liberal  as  from  the  rigid  side.  As  there  is  no  denying 
the  fact,  there  may  be  some  grace  in  making  the  frank  asser- 
tion, that  Unitarians  do  not  like  some  of  the  ways  and  schemes 
of  the  Orthodox.  We  do  not  like  the  strictly  Orthodox  type  of 
character,  certainly  not  till  it  has  been  modified,  humanized,  and 
liberalized.  We  deem  it  harsh,  ungenial,  narrow,  repulsive,  not 
winning,  gracious,  expansive,  or  attractive.  It  is  in  our  view 
but  an  inadequate  expression  of  our  ideal  of  a  Christian  charac- 
ter. We  think  that  the  intense  concentration  by  which  Ortho- 
doxy makes  the  whole  problem  of  the  universe  to  turn  for  each 
individual  upon  the  means  of  rescuing  his  soul  from  the  wreck 
of  a  doomed  world,  and  from  the  fate  sure  to  befall  his  neigh- 
bors, has  a  most  direful  effect  upon  the  more  loving  sensibilities 
of  the  human  heart.  Then,  too,  when  we  hear  the  Saviour  of 
the  world  monopolized,  in  the  boastful  arrogance  of  some  confi- 
dent converts,  as  "  my  Saviour,"  as  if  they  were  dearer  to  him 
than  the  veriest  wretch  whom  they  would  scorn,  —  when  we 
hear  this  from  some  whose  peculiar  favor  with  God  is  to  human 
judgment  more  than  doubtful,  —  we  cannot  but  feel  that  Jesus  is 
wounded  in  the  house  of  his  professed  friends.  Nor  is  it  by  any 
means  in  matters  of  taste  and  sensitiveness  that  Unitarians  are 
thus  often  repelled  by  some  of  the  Orthodox.  Far  otherwise. 
Grave  objections  arise  as  to  the  policy,  the  propriety,  the  recti- 
tude, of  what  is  known  among  men  by  the  phrase  "  Orthodox 
management."  We  could  not  heartily  accord  with  some  meas- 
ures which  engage  often  their  heartiest  zeal.  Most  seriously, 
too,  do  we  dissent  from  their  mode  of  presenting  the  Gospel,  and 
from  their  interpretation  and  application  of  it.  I  have  allowed 
myself  to  write  with  this  frankness  merely  to  convey  something 
of  my  meaning  in  affirming  that  the  embarrassment  attending  a 
full  fellowship  between  the  Orthodox  and  the  Unitarians  would 
by  no  means  be  wholly  on  the  side  of  the  former.  And  still  I 
repeat  what  I  had  written  as  to  our  regret  at  our  exclusion  from 


APPENDIX.  501 

"  the  pale  of  Evangelical  Communion,"  because  of  our  rejec- 
tion of  "  a  constructive  view  expressed  in  a  doctrinal  formula." 
We  regret  it,  as  I  also  said,  as  much  on  account  of  its  effect  on 
the  Orthodox,  as  on  account  of  its  effect  on  ourselves.  The  rea- 
son by  which  this  policy,  taking  the  name  of  conscience  for 
its  warrant,  justifies  itself,  is  but  one  of  a  series  of  similar 
reasons  used  by  different  Christian  sects  for  vindicating  their 
exclusion  of  their  brethren  of  other  communions.  The  Ortho- 
dox Congregationalist  bars  out  the  Unitarian,  as  we  say,  simply 
because  of  speculative  differences  about  matters  which  are  not 
vital  to  belief  in  the  Christian  religion,  and  to  a  course  of  life 
conformed  to  that  belief.  The  Baptist  denies  fellowship  to  the 
Orthodox  Congregationalist,  on  the  ground  of  his  heresy  as  to 
the  form  and  subjects  of  baptism.  The  Episcopalian  stands 
aloof  from  all  who  are  outside  of  his  Church,  as  being  really 
outside  of  the  true  Church  of  Christ.  The  Romanist  draws  out 
the  great  Gospel  net,  and,  while  assorting  its  contents  as  under 
the  direction  of  St.  Peter,  makes  no  more  account  of  an  Episcopa- 
lian, a  Baptist,  or  an  Orthodox  fish,  than  of  a  Unitarian.  It  must 
be  a  strange  sight  for  Him  who  is  walking  the  waters  and  teach- 
ing from  the  shore,  to  see  the  fish  in  his  great  net  assuming  the 
office  of  self-selection  and  mutual  rejection,  the  office  which  he 
reserved  for  himself! 

But  this  exclusive  policy  seems  more  odious  to  us  when  prac- 
tised by  our  former  brethren,  because  of  its  more  obvious  incon- 
sistency in  their  case  with  the  principles  of  Protestantism.  We 
maintain,  too,  that  the  ground  of  our  exclusion  is  a  matter  not 
so  much  of  belief,  as  of  speculative  opinion.  We  ask  our  breth- 
ren to  look  at  the  facts  of  the  case  as  they  appear  to  the  Chris- 
tian community  at  large,  and  then  to  Roman  Catholics,  and  then 
to  unbelievers,  and  then  to  the  critics  and  impugners  of  Protes- 
tant consistency.  Here  are  intelligent  and  sincere  men  and 
women,  who  avow  themselves  as  believers  in  Christ,  disciples 
of  his,  resting  all  their  hopes  on  his  Gospel,  and  zealous  of 
sharing  with  other  Christians  the  practical  works  of'Christian 
benevolence  and  effort.  The  simple  acknowledgment  on  the 
part  of  such  persons,  that  their  speculative  views  are  such  as  are 
generally,  though  vaguely,  called  Unitarian,  is  sufficient  to  put 


502  APPENDIX. 

them  outside  the  pale  of  fellowship.  There  is  something,  too, 
particularly  offensive,  at  times  and  on  occasions,  in  the  way  in 
which  the  sentence  is  executed.  Unitarians  are  solicited  to  aid 
in  every  measure  of  benevolence  and  enterprise,  they  are  al- 
lowed even  a  silent  presence  in  the  gatherings  and  associations 
of  the  elect ;  but  they  may  not  eause  their  voices  to  be  heard,  or 
their  votes  to  influence  any  practical  work.  In  the  mean  while 
the  fact  is  well  known  and  indisputable,  that  nominal  Orthodoxy 
shelters  an  uncounted  number  of  persons  who,  though  when 
they  joined  their  respective  communions  they  may  have  sin- 
cerely accepted  the  received  tenets  so  far  as  they  understood 
them,  have  been  led  by  thought,  inquiry,  and  experience  to 
adopt  essentially  Unitarian  views.  Real  but  unavowed  Unita- 
rianism  is  tolerated,  but  an  open  profession  of  it  is  punished. 

Our  Orthodox  friends,  however,  would  misjudge  us  if  they  as- 
cribed our  feeling  on  this  subject  to  any  poor  pique,  or  any  weak 
desire  to  receive  their  countenance.  We  are  affected  by  their 
course  towards  us  solely  and  simply  as  it  violates  the  consisten- 
cies of  Christian  truth,  the  harmonies  of  Christian  charity,  and 
the  principles  of  sound  Protestantism.  Most  free  are  we  to  ac- 
knowledge, with  the  generous  rivalry  of  Christian  esteem,  the 
piety  and  zeal  of  those  bodies  of  fellow-believers  who  repel  us. 
We  will  institute  no  boastful  comparisons  which  will  exalt  our- 
selves by  depreciating  them.  But  still,  though  severed  from  their 
fellowship,  we  do  not  feel  that  we  are  really  cut  off  or  estranged 
from  a  true  Christian  participation  with  them  in  common  sacred 
interests.  No  sectarian  edicts  of  theirs  can  deprive  us  of  our 
full  share  by  faith  and  works  in  the  glory  of  all  their  eminent 
disciples,  and  in  the  powerful  efficacy  of  their  testimony  to  truth 
and  righteousness.  No  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent  can  ex- 
clude us  from  real  fellowship  of  heart  with  Fenelon  and  Pascal, 
and  the  very  sentiment  of  love  which  moves  us  to  approve  any 
evangelical  work  of  Orthodoxy  makes  us  really  more  effective 
participants  in  it,  than  would  a  right  to  raise  our  hands  for  vot- 
ing about*it.  Thus  Orthodoxy  is  really  baffled  in  its  excommu- 
nicating purpose  against  us :  its  pales  cannot  be  driven  so  deep 
as  to  divide  heart-sympathies,  nor  raised  so  high  as  to  cut  off 
from  us  either  the  direct  or  the  reflected  light  of  Christian  truth 


APPENDIX.  503 

and  love.  Granting  all  this,  Unitarians  might  say  one  word 
more  as  evidence  that  they  are  not  suing  for  Christian  sym- 
pathy under  any  timid  or  lonely  sense  of  their  own  peculiar 
position.  Unitarianism  has  a  fold  and  a  fellowship  of  its  own. 
Collect  together  the  names  and  services  of  those  who  by  their 
own  full  consent  might  properly  be  entitled  Liberal  Christians, 
and  —  if  we  can  say  it  with  becoming  humility,  we  will  say  it 
boldly  —  a  Christian  man  or  woman  may  regard  the  hospitali- 
ties of  their  household  as  a  fair  offset  to  the  sectarianism  of  other 
Christians  which  turns  them  out  of  doors.  We  have  within  our 
own  fellowship  all  the  elements  and  fruits  of  a  true  membership 
of  the  Christian  Church.  We  have  our  traditions  and  associa- 
tions, our  saints  and  martyrs,  our  poems  and  biographies,  our 
charities  and  our  progressive  enterprises.  If  need  be,  we  can 
stand  a  long  and  a  hard  pressure  from  without,  and  subsist  with 
tolerable  satisfaction  on  our  own  resources.  Our  policy  must  be 
to  yield  forbearingly  and  heartily  to  every  condescending  appeal 
from  Orthodoxy  which  would  enlist  us  in  its  good  works.  So 
far  as,  in  anything  that  is  right,  they  ask  us  to  co-operate  with 
them,  we  must  cheerfully  assent.  For  the  most  part,  they  have, 
so  far,  restricted  their  advances  to  us  to  a  simple  request  that  we 
will  allow  them  to  sanctify  our  money  given  for  benevolent  uses. 
Let  them  have  the  money  freely,  and  by  and  by  they  may 
think  better  of  the  hearts  and  minds  whose  feelings  and  views 
the  gift  represents.  Even  in  the  words  of  my  critic  which  have 
drawn  from  me  these  remarks,  it  will  be  observed  that  he  admits 
the  sincerity,  the  moral  fidelity,  and  other  religious  virtues  of 
some  Unitarians.  According  to  the  Christian  rule,  one  man  has 
no  right  to  judge  another,  beyond  these  qualities,  if  even  within 
their  range.  Why  then  judge  us  for  speculative  opinions,  and 
exclude  us  because  of  them  ?  The  Orthodox  certainly  would 
not  sever  us  from  their  fellowship  for  the  sake  of  diminishing 
the  chance  of  our  salvation.  Is  it,  then,  because  they  fear  to 
imperil  their  own  ? 


504  APPENDIX, 

XII. 

CONTROVERTED  VIEWS  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

I  come  now  to  the  last  of  the  series  of  critical  papers  which 
are  engaging  my  notice.  It  relates  to  my  Essay  upon  the  Or- 
thodox and  the  Unitarian  Views  of  the  Scriptures.  The  paper 
presents  but  few  points  to  which  I  need  make  a  particular  reply. 
In  its  form  and  tone  it  seems  at  first  to  remonstrate  with  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  earnestness  against  some  of  my  positions ; 
but  when  I  try  to  fix  an  issue  with  the  writer  on  anything  in 
which  he  appears  to  raise  an  issue  with  me,  I  am  baffled.  The 
simple  truth  is,  that,  like  many  modern  Orthodox  writers,  he 
does  in  fact  make  all  the  concessions,  yield  all  the  qualifica- 
tions, and  allow  all  the  exceptions,  insisted  on  by  Unitarians, 
though  in  an  indirect  and  more  guarded  way.  Indeed,  had  his 
paper  been  in  print  when  I  wrote,  I  might  have  quoted  sentences 
from  it,  as  I  have  from  the  pens  of  other  Orthodox  men,  in  illus- 
tration of  my  own  positions.  I  am  compelled,  however,  to  add, 
that,  like  many  of  his  brethren,  he  protests  against  the  views  of 
Unitarians  on  this  subject,  in  a  tone  and  way  which  indicate  an 
entire  misapprehension  of  our  purposes  and  ruling  aims.  What 
we  say  in  opposition  to  exaggerated  and  mistaken  Orthodox 
views  of  the  Bible,  is  construed  by  them  as  said  in  opposition 
to  the  Bible.  The  abatements  which  we  allow  or  insist  upon  as 
required  to  reduce  an  old,  superstitious,  and  untenable  notion 
about  the  Scriptures,  are  represented  as  assaults  upon  the  au- 
thority of  the  Scriptures.  Now  Unitarians  ought  not  to  be  com- 
pelled at  this  day  to  define  their  position  touching  these  prelimi- 
naries of  a  discussion.  I  ask  with  all  confidence  the  question, 
What  denomination  of  Christians  has  done  more  than  the  Unita- 
rians in  Europe  and  in  America  to  authenticate,  defend,  and  in- 
terpret the  Scriptures  in  a  way  to  secure  the  grounds  of  a  strong 
faith  in  them,  and  to  keep  them  sacred  for  the  uses  of  piety  ? 
Have  we  not  the  same  interest,  the  same  momentous  interest,  at 
stake  in  them  with  all  other  Christians  ?  The  Orthodox  might 
as  well  charge  us  with  trying  to  vitiate  the  title-deeds  of  our 


APPENDIX.  505 

dwelling-houses,  when  we  are  verifying  them  and  securing  our 
tenements  from  decay  and  the  weather,  as  charge  us  with  un- 
dermining the  Scriptures. 

Recurring  to  the  fifth  Essay  in  this  volume,  the  reader  will 
note  the  method  and  the  purpose  of  the  argument  there  pursued. 
In  brief,  it  is  as  follows.  When  the  Unitarian  Controversy 
opened  here,  there  was  a  prevailing  popular  view  of  the  Scrip- 
tures which  was  superstitious,  exaggerated,  and  untenable.  Bib- 
lical criticism  came  in  with  the  controversy.  In  the  course  of 
their  discussions,  Unitarians  had  to  suggest  as  novelties  many 
facts  and  considerations  which  have  now  become  quite  familiar. 
They  suggested  a  revision  of  the  translation  in  some  passages, 
the  presence  of  error  here  and  there,  the  necessity  of  allowing 
for  metaphoric  or  rhetorical  language,  and,  above  all,  the  utter 
impossibility  of  holding  to  and  vindicating  against  reasonable  ob- 
jections the  prevailing  views  of  the  verbal  inspiration  and  the 
infallibility  of  Scripture.  These  concessions  and  suggestions 
Unitarians  made,  not  for  the  sake  of  foisting  their  own  views 
into  the  Scriptures,  not  to  diminish  one  whit  the  support  they 
were  supposed  to  afford  to  Orthodoxy,  but  simply  and  solely  in 
justice  to  the  claims  of  solemn  truth  and  for  the  purpose  of  vin- 
dicating the  Bible  against  the  cavils  of  infidelity.  So  far  as  con- 
cerns the  evidence  from  Scripture  texts  of  the  truth  of  their  own 
views,  Unitarians  were  perfectly  willing  to  take  the  Bible  as  it 
is.  But  they  know  very  well  that  the  faith  of  millions  in  the 
Bible  could  not  stand  if  compelled  to  hold  up  ignorant  and  child- 
ish superstitions  with  it.  Therefore  they  insisted  upon  the  con- 
cessions and  suggestions  just  referred  to.  For  this,  as  my  ar- 
gument proceeded  to  show,  they  were  sharply  censured  and 
most  grossly  misrepresented  by  many  champions  of  Orthodoxy. 
I  proceeded  then  to  treat  at  some  length  of  the  grounds  and  the 
extent  of  the  needful  modification  of  the  old  popular  notion  of 
the  Bible,  and  to  prove,  as  the  crown  of  my  argument,  that  ap- 
proved Orthodox  writers,  from  whom  I  quote,  now  ratify,  in  the 
fullest  possible  way,  all  that  Unitarians  demand  and  insist  upon 
in  the  substance  of  their  own  views  of  the  fallibility  of  the  Bible 
in  some  of  its  contents,  and  of  the  necessity  of  modifying  the 
old  notions  of  its  inspiration.  If  my  mind  is  clear  on  any  point, 
43 


506  APPENDIX. 

it  is  on  this,  that  even  some  of  the  essays  and  works  written  by 
Orthodox  men,  for  the  set  purpose  of  answering  the  Unitarian 
heresies  on  these  subjects,  do  in  fact  ratify  and  indorse  those 
heresies.  Professor  Stuart  himself  is  quoted  by  me  as  an  evi- 
dence of  this  assertion,  and  it  is  one  of  which  there  is  over- 
whelming proof  in  his  own  pages,  though  his  concessions  to  the 
exigencies  of  criticism  are  often  made  in  the  most  curious  and 
indirect  manner. 

In  the  paper  before  me,  the  writer  claims  for  Professor  Stuart 
the  credit  of  originating  the  science  of  Biblical  criticism  in  this 
country,  and  of  "diffusing  it,  inspiring  a  zeal  for  it,  and  impel- 
ling it  onward."  .  Pie  adds  :  "  Nearly  all  in  New  England,  and 
I  might  almost  say  in  the  country  at  large,  who  have  attained  to 
eminence  in  this  branch  of  learning,  received  their  first  impulse 
and  instruction  from  his  lips."  The  valuable  services  of  that 
excellent  and  devoted  man  must  indeed  be  acknowledged  by 
every  Scripture  scholar  in  the  land.  His  iron  diligence,  his 
independence,  energy,  and  conscientiousness,  as  well  as  his 
thorough  kindliness  of  heart,  and  his  entire  consecration  to 
the  work  of  his  life,  will  assure  for  him  renewed  and  ever  fresh 
memorials  of  gratitude.  My  own  impression,  however,  from 
my  private  reading,  has  been,  that  Mr.  Buckminster  was  really, 
in  order  of  time  and  in  actual  outlay  of  zeal,  the  first  individual 
to  quicken  an  interest  in  Biblical  criticism.  My  critic  says  that 
Professor  Norton  was  undoubtedly  the  first  Unitarian  who  gave 
himself  to  the  science,  but  Mr.  Norton  acknowledged  his  obliga- 
tions to  Mr.  Buckminster.  My  own  admission  is  quoted  to  the 
effect  that  Mr.  Norton  adopted  some  extreme  opinions,  in  which 
Unitarians  have  not  followed  him.  But  if  my  critic  will  consult 
the  work  to  which  I  have  referred  on  page  398,  he  will  find  that 
a  divine  of  the  Church  of  England,  who  aims  u  to  reconcile 
Christian  Orthodoxy  with  the  conclusions  of  Modern  Biblical 
Learning,"  indorses  Mr.  Norton  to  the  fullest  extent  of  his  here- 
sies, and  even  goes  beyond  him. 

Exception  is  taken  to  an  inference  from  my  words  to  the  ef- 
fect that  Unitarians  may  believe  in  the  doctrine  of  inspiration  in 
the  Orthodox  sense.  My  critic  forgets  what  in  other  places  he 
has  insisted  upon,  namely,  the  modifications  of  their  own  theories 


APPENDIX.  507 

on  some  subjects  which  approved  Orthodox  men  allow.  I  am 
willing,  for  one,  to  say,  that  I  hold  views  of  Inspiration  which  are 
taught  and  indorsed  by  such  authorities.  It  is  a  part  of  my 
argument  to  show  that  the  two  parties  have  been  brought  into 
essential  accordance  of  theory  here.  There  is  an  old  Orthodox 
theory  and  a  new  Orthodox  theory,  between  which  I  have  tried 
to  distinguish.     My  critic  shall  here  speak  for  himself. 

"  And  yet  it  is  evident  that  Mr.  Ellis  does  not  understand  the 
Orthodox  doctrine  of  Inspiration.  At  any  rate,  he  does  not  rep- 
resent it  correctly.  We  do  not  believe  in  the  inspiration  of 
translators,  or  transcribers,  or  interpreters.  A  translation  of  the 
Scriptures  is  a  proper  subject  of  criticism,  like  any  other  trans- 
lation. And  the  same  may  be  said  of  a  copy  or  an  interpreta- 
tion. We  do  not  believe  the  Apostles  to  have  been  inspired  in 
all  their  intercourse  and  conversation  one  with  another.  For  we 
find  them  often  dull,  stupid,  prejudiced,  ignorant,  and  sometimes 
disputing  one  with  another.  We  find  our  Saviour  not  unfre- 
quently  reproving  them ;  and  Paul  on  one  occasion  (to  which 
Mr.  Ellis  refers)  withstood  Peter  openly,  because  he  was  to  be 
blamed." 

I  am  not  aware  that  I  have  affirmed  the  belief  of  the  Orthodox 
"  in  the  inspiration  of  translators,  or  transcribers,  or  interpreters." 
I  have  implied,  however,  what  is  strictly  true,  that  the  old  popu- 
lar view  of  Inspiration  left  out  of  sight  the  fact  that  there  had 
been  fallible  translators,  transcribers,  and  interpreters,  and  pro- 
ceeded on  the  assumption  that  the  text  of  our  common  English 
Bible  constituted  an  authority  back  of  which  there  was  no  appeal. 
I  wish  the  reader  to  mark  the  very  loose  allowance  made  by  my 
critic  as  to  the  imperfections  of  the  Apostles.  It  is  one  of  those 
back-handed  concessions  to  which  I  have  already  referred. 

To  what  is  said  in  the  following  paragraphs  no  real  objection 
can  be  taken,  for  when  the  premises  required  are  established, 
the  conclusion  may  be  accepted  :  — 

"  It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  Orthodox  repudiate  reason  al- 
together, and  leave  it  little  or  nothing  to  do  in  matters  of  rev- 
elation. But  this  is  a  great  mistake.  We  hold  that  reason  has 
much  to  do  in  this  matter.  It  belongs  to  reason  to  decide 
whether  God  has  made  any  supernatural  revelation  of  himself 
to  the  world  ;  and  if  so,  where  and  what  this  revelation  is. 
What  books  contain  it  ?     Have  we  the  right  books  ?     If  these 


508  APPENDIX. 

books  are  in  the  original  tongues,  have  we  accurate  copies  ? 
Or  if  in  a  translation,  is  our  translation  accurate  ?  Does  it  give 
the  real  sense  and  spirit  of  the  original  ?  And  when  all  these 
points  are  satisfactorily  settled,  what  does  the  language  mean  ? 
Do  we  understand  it  aright  ?  Here  are  various  points  of  great 
importance,  which  are  submitted  to  our  reason,  and  on  which  it 
is  the  province  of  reason  to  judge. 

"  But  beyond  and  behind  all  these  questions,  reason,  we  think, 
has  no  right  to  go.  When  we  have  ascertained,  to  our  satisfac- 
tion, that  any  particular  book  is  from  God,  and  that  we  under- 
stand it  as  God  has  revealed  it,  then  we  are  bound  by  it.  It  is 
to  us  the  word  of  God.  So  far  as  it  goes,  it  is  an  infallible  rule 
of  faith  and  life. " 

We  too  may  say,  that  "  when  we  have  ascertained  to  our  sat- 
isfaction that  any  particular  book  (and  why  not  add,  any  part 
of  a  book  ?)  is  from  God,  and  that  we  understand  it  as  God  re- 
vealed it,  then  we  are  bound  by  it."  But  the  contents  of  such 
book  will  always  and  necessarily  claim  to  enter  among  the  tests 
of  its  Divine  origin  and  authority.  If  we  detect  manifest  errors 
in  it,  our  conclusion  must  be  that  the  particular  book  or  part  of 
the  book  which  is  fallible,  either  never  came  from  God,  or  has 
been  corrupted. 

There  is  much  also  that  is  very  loose  in  the  following  para- 
graph :  — 

"  We  believe  that '  all  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,' 
but  then  there  is  an  important  distinction  between  inspiration 
and  revelation,  which  Mr.  Ellis  does  not  make,  and  which  may 
relieve  him  of  some  of  his  difficulties.  Revelation  makes  known 
to  us  God's  truth  and  will.  Inspiration  has  respect  to  the  assist- 
ance afforded  to  the  sacred  writers  in  recording  God's  truth  and 
will,  or  in  recording  anything  else  which  God  is  pleased  to  have 
written  in  his  word.  There  is  much  in  the  Bible  that  is  not  re- 
vealed truth,  or  truth  in  any  sense ;  and  yet  '  all  Scripture  is 
given  by  inspiration  of  God.'  The  speech  of  the  serpent  to  our 
first  mother  was  not  revealed  truth.  It  was  the  first  and  great- 
est lie  that  ever  was  uttered.  And  yet  Moses  was  as  really  in- 
spired in  recording  the  speech  of  the  serpent,  as  he  was  in 
recording  the  Ten  Commandments.  The  books  of  Job  and  of 
Ecclesiastes  (to  which  Mr.  Ellis  refers)  are  not  all  of  them  re- 
vealed truth.  They  cannot  be*.  And  yet  the  record  —  at  least 
the  original  record  —  may  have  been  divine  and  infallible.  It 
may  have  been  written,  and  we  think  it  was,  under  the  inspira- 
tion of  God." 


APPENDIX.  509 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  repeat  here,  that  the  intended  Scrip- 
ture quotation  at  the  beginning  of  the  paragraph  is  but  a  begging 
of  the  question.  There  is  a  great  difference  between  the  true 
reading,  "All  God-inspired  Scripture  is  profitable,"  &c,  and 
the  reading  which  my  critic  adopts.  There  is  hardly  an  appre- 
ciable distinction  between  revelation  and  inspiration  ;  for  if  any- 
thing is  communicated  by  inspiration,  it  must  be  something  that 
is  revealed.  Mr.  Lee,  in  his  very  disappointing  work  on  the 
subject,  labors  hard  upon  the  distinction,  for  which,  by  the  way, 
in  the  form  of  it  which  he  adopts,  he  is  under  an  unavowed  obli- 
gation to  another. 

I  am  not  prepared  to  admit  that  Moses  was  inspired  to  serve 
as  an  amanuensis  for  a  Personage,  who,  if  he  has  half  the  power 
that  has  been  attributed  to  him,  was  abundantly  able  to  keep  his 
own  records  without  taking  into  his  disloyal  service  a  penman 
previously  engaged  for  a  worthier  Master.  As  to  "  the  original 
record  "  of  Job  and  Ecclesiastes  being  divine  and  infallible,  it 
is  enough  to  say  that  we  have  not  got  it.  I  am  confident,  how- 
ever, that  I  rate  the  value  and  authority  of  those  books  as  high 
as  does  my  critic.  He  makes  a  passing  reference  to  a  few  of 
the  specific  cases  of  palpable  fallibility  in  the  contents  of  the 
Bible,  some  of  which  he  thinks  have  come  in  through  the  error 
of  transcribers.  They  are  in  the  Bible,  nevertheless.  But  all 
these  difficulties,  he  thinks,  "  may  be  disposed  of  in  one  way  or 
another,  without  impeaching  the  truthfulness  or  the  inspiration 
of  the  original  writers."  But  how  ?  That  is  the  very  question 
the  discussion  of  which  opens  the  whole  fair  field  of  Biblical 
criticism.  On  that  field  dogmatism  and  unsupported  assump- 
tion are  sure  to  be  worsted.  How  can  any  one  assume  the  in- 
fallibility of  the  Bible,  as  the  mass  of  readers  have  it,  and  then 
fall  back  on  the  autographs  of  the  original  writers,  which  are  not 
in  our  possession  ? 

One  example,  most  comprehensive  in  itself,  of  all  the  principal 
assumptions  and  difficulties  embraced  in  this  theme,  may  serve 
to  present  all  its  bearings  to  us. 

The  chief  argument  in  proof  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Old 
Testament  is,  that  the  Saviour  quoted  it  as  authority.  Of 
course,  then,  we  are  concerned  to  have  a  most  exact  report 


510  APPENDIX. 

of  his  very  words.  The  main  argument  in  proof  of  the  infal- 
libility of  his  Apostles  is  the  Master's  commission  and  promise 
to  them.  This  inspiration  and  this  infallibility,  then,  we  should 
expect  to  find  combined  in  a  report  of  the  Saviour's  words  au- 
thenticating the  Old  Testament. 

Now  take  the  three  reports  which  three  of  the  Evangelists 
give  us  of  an  argument  from  the  Saviour's  own  lips,  founded  on 
a  quotation  from  the  Old  Testament,  for  the  discomfiture  of  the 
cavilling  Sadducees. 

Matthew  xxii.  31,  32  gives  it  thus  :  "But  as  touching  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead,  have  ye  not  read  that  which  was  spo- 
ken unto  you  by  God,  saying,  I  am  the  God  of  Abraham,"  &c. 

Mark  xii.  26  gives  it  thus :  "And  as  touching  the  dead,  that 
they  rise :  have  ye  not  read  in  the  book  of  Moses,  how  in  the 
bush  God  spake  unto  him,  saying,  I  am  the  God  of  Abra- 
ham," &LC. 

Luke  xx.  37  gives  it  thus:  "Now  that  the  dead  are  raised, 
even  Moses  showed  at  the  bush,  when  he  calleth  the  Lord  the 
God  of  Abraham,"  &c. 

What  were  the  exact  words  of  Christ  in  this  instance  ?  We 
may  say,  substantially,  the  three  reports  of  them  convey  them 
to  us.  But  when  salvation  is  often  made  dependent  upon  the 
exactness  of  verbal  renderings  of  originally  infallible  statements, 
—  as  in  the  quotation  of  some  other  sentences  of  Scripture, — 
we  must  demand  unerring  accuracy. 

Yet  the  critic  affirms  that  the  tendency  of  my  article  and  its 
argument,  notwithstanding  my  "  solemn  asseveration,  is  to  bring 
the  Bible  into  doubt  and  suspicion  with  the  great  mass  of  read- 
ers." In  vain,  therefore,  I  suppose,  shall  I  assure  him  that  I  am 
fully  persuaded  that  the  views  referred  to  are  the  only  possible 
means  for  removing  the  doubt  and  suspicion  of  another  large 
mass  of  readers.  He  asks,  "  What  is  the  use  of  parading  these 
difficulties,  and  exaggerating  them,  so  as  to  make  the  impression 
that  the  Bible  is  a  very  unreliable  book  ?  "  Whoever  does  what 
the  critic  here  suggests,  I  hold,  as  heartily  as  he  would,  to  be  an 
unwise,  an  unfair,  and  a  mischievous  person.  No  one  who  com- 
mits to  the  Bible  such  transcendent  interests  of  humanity  as  I 
believe  to  be  intrusted  to  it  and  dependent  upon  it,  would  run 


APPENDIX.  511 

the  risk  of  being  justly  liable  to  such  a  charge.  It  is  very  easy 
to  discern  the  difference  between  a  captious,  cavilling  critic,  and 
a  discreet  champion  of  the  Bible.  Where  have  I  paraded,  where 
have  I  exaggerated,  the  difficulties  presented,  not  so  much  by 
Scripture,  but  by  Scripture  when  embarrassed  by  an  artificial 
and  superstitious  authority  or  character  ?  My  aim  has  been  to 
state  them  in  a  moderate  and  cautious  way,  for  the  simple  pur- 
pose of  showing  that  they  arise  and  receive  their  whole  serious- 
ness, as  objections  of  any  weight,  from  the  Orthodox  theory 
which  assigns  to  the  promiscuous  contents  of  the  Bible  a  di- 
vine authority  not  claimed  by  them  for  themselves. 

My  own  strong  conviction  is,  that  the  Bible  carries  with  it  its 
own  warrant  for  asking  our  faith  in  its  principal  contents.  It 
commends  its  lessons  to  the  heart  and  soul  of  man.  The  old 
Orthodox  theory  of  its  inspired  infallibility  would  never  suggest 
itself  to  an  intelligent  reader  of  our  day,  who,  with  the  best 
training  which  the  other  sources  of  knowledge  afford  him, 
should  turn  for  the  first  time  to  the  perusal  of  its  pages.  The 
hostile  criticisms  which  pick  flaws  and  detect  imperfections  in 
it  here  and  there,  answer  to  the  superstitious  and  exaggerated 
claims  which  are  set  up  for  it  by  its  indiscriminating  idolaters. 
We  have  no  right  to  tamper  with  the  record,  nor  to  overstate  its 
difficulties,  nor  to  dispute  the  authority  of  inspired  writers  on  any 
points  covered  by  their  divine  commission.  Neither  have  we 
any  right  to  speak  of  everything  in  that  book  as  having  the  es- 
pecial sanction  of  God.  We  have  no  original  record  from  either 
of  the  writers.  In  their  present  form,  to  the  mass  of  readers  the 
Scriptures  present  themselves  as  sufficiently  intelligible  and  au- 
thoritative for  all  the  reasonable  uses  of  faith  and  piety.  To  the 
scholar  they  present  perplexities  which  he  must  deal  with  as 
best  he  can.  I  am  happy  to  close  these  remarks  with  an  ex- 
pression of  my  entire  persuasion,  that,  allowing  for  our  different 
ways  of  conveying  the  positive  and  the  negative  elements  of  our 
belief  on  this  subject,  my  critic  and  myself  are  substantially 
agreed. 

THE    END. 


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DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


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